Girl's Frontline- The Legionnaires of ARTEMIS (Prologue)
by HighlandHero
Summary: A young Sargeant is in charge of a bunch of rookies, and being sent to the most contested zone in the Middle East...but there is a new player in town, ARTEMIS. A organization who is bringing the Frontline to the Sangvis Ferri, and Scotty has a few bones to pick with the Sangs as well...
1. Chapter 1

September 14th,[REDACTED]

Sergeant Percival "Scotty" Cameron

Afghanistan, [REDACTED]

0935 Hours

It's been five days since we've left the base. Five days searching for an invisible enemy. One that you can't see, can't hear and sure as hell can't predict. But you could feel their eyes constantly staring at the helmet you were wearing, waiting to put a bullet in between your eyes. I sat on a rock in the middle of Konar near Afghanistan's Eastern border with Pakistan. Mountains rose behind me and the sun glittering through the cracks of the ice-capped peaks. Fogs of heat escaped my mouth with every breath I took, but it wasn't that cold. I've had worse in Arctic warfare training. I heard someone sneeze from behind me. The new recruits fresh out of boot camp was under my command, Lieutenant Able had sent us out in search of a fleeing Sangvis Ferri guerrilla force, we've been chasing ghosts ever since...

From inside a heavy jacket covered by a tactical vest, I pulled out a letter and a picture. It was from my ex-wife. One six year old boy and a four year old girl sat in a couch with the woman I married four years ago. They smiled holding up the Christmas presents I sent them from a shithole in Eastern Europe before we were redeployed to Afghanistan. This unit, 2nd Marines, 6th Marine Regiment had a reputation of getting eighty percent of fresh recruits killed in their first tour. I had survived in Europe. My buddy from boot camp, Private John Ink hadn't. He died from stepping on a mine while our young squad fooled around just outside the base. His parents received his paycheck and a letter saying their son died in glorious battle...

Lies...

"Sarge, when are we going to get back to FOB Utah? We're getting low on rations," PFC Jimmy "Draco" Wilkins, he was a natural born leader, the smart one of the rookie group.

"When we find the Sangs or die trying," I whispered, he was also my second in command.

I looked back to see fifteen Marines no older than twenty huddling around in sleeping bags, trying to gain warmth. The sight brought back memories of countless tours of duty. The last one was suppose to be the final deployment, the doctors were afraid that I would have Traumatic Brain Injury. That is, until the squad leader responsible for training the recruits were killed from a roadside bomb.

Just before I left, there was a letter on the kitchen table from my wife. The last words were, 'I'm taking the kids to their grandmother's.' She took everything. My money, my kids, even the house that I used to live in. I had to build everything from scratch. I sighed, slipping the picture and letter back into my vest. Why I didn't burn it, I don't know. Maybe it was the kids, maybe it was the only thing keeping me connected to home while I was in this alien world...

I grabbed my M16A4, propped up against a nearby tree and stood up to shake off the frost that had coated my clothes since the past night. Layers of crystallized water cracked and fell onto the ice covered ground like leaves in a fall wind. I walked over to Corporal Wilkins and told him to wake up the green Marines.

"Hey, 3/6 Charlie it's time to move. Up and at it, let's go!" PFC Wilkins slapped each of the fifteen Marines on the head to give them a head start.

"Is it morning already Jim? Fucking hell, give me five minutes," Private Joshua Townsend, the trouble maker of the group and former American football star from high school.

"We're moving out Townsend. Get up before the Sangs put a mortar round in your mouth," PFC Wilkins moved to his ILBE (Improved Load Bearing Equipment) pack and started to fold his sleeping bag and mattress.

"Sarge, we just slept three hours. Can't we just move out at high noon?" Private First Class Jake Simmons, Fireteam Bravo's Automatic Rifleman, he was solidly built and could dish out punishment like a tank.

"Well do we want to vote on it?" I asked turning around, my bag already packed and ready for travel.

"Yes Sarge," they murmured and slowly crawled out of their warm bags to meet the shivering cold breeze.

"Well I have bad fucking news. This isn't a democracy you little shits, what comes down from the top you execute. I have a job to get you into a firefight with a hiding enemy and come back in one piece and that's exactly what the LT expects me to do. Now get your ILBE loaded and on your backs in five mikes or they'll be high hell to pay back at the FOB." I shrugged on my pack, double-checked my rifle and made sure a round was inside the chamber.

"Yes Sergeant," they grumbled back and pulled on their desert MARPAT jackets.

It took the entire squad thirty minutes to become fully awake and finish packing up their gear. When we moved out, the sun had come out of the mountains and was sitting on the peaks. Ice started to melt into water, the liquid streaming down from the ice caps high above us. It amazed me that the guerrilla fighters didn't take this advantage to attack us. Rocks, gravel, and bits of dead vegetation crunched under my boots as we walked across the ridge and deeper into enemy territory. Over the mountains to our right stood Pakistan, flat plains lush with shade from the sun. It was cold now but soon it was about to become boiling hot. Sweat dripped down my face and into my jacket, adding to the grime that was already thick on my skin. Throughout the entire march, the Marines kept complaining about each and everything. Why we were walking on the mountains, why they had to go into the Marines and not college, why Afghanistan? I was walking behind two Marines in a single file line. Lance Corporal Jack Davis, Fireteam Alpha's leader, he was a reliable man and cool under fire. Behind him was the radioman, Private First Class Lucas Hayes, part of Fireteam Bravo. He was caring but quaked under fire and was a known coward. Maybe that's why he's radio operator. I heard a crackle in the distance. Everyone kept moving except me. Dust kicked up just next to Hayes.

"Contact, contact!" Hayes screamed, and the entire squad went prone.

"Where the fuck are they firing from?" my heart raced as my eyes darted around the entire mountain.

"Sergeant, the mountain just off to our right. I saw muzzle flash from inside one of those caves," Wilkins quickly reported, as dust kicked up just down the slope. Too close.

"Alright, fuck," I grumbled looking behind me to see an outcropping of rocks protruding from the mountain.

"Hey Charlie, get your ass up there and give us some suppressive fire!" I yelled seeing the young Marines still frozen by the sudden ambush.

"Charlie!" I screamed, only their squad leader got up.

"Get your asses up there right now," Corporal Nicholas Taylor bellowed at his subordinates and grabbed them by their packs.

"Yes Sarge!" They yelled, suddenly realizing their orders.

"Bravo, give me precision strikes on those mother fuckers!" I tapped Hayes on the back and ran behind Bravo towards a small dip in the mountain, wither natural or artificial I didn't care.

"On it, Sergeant," Corporal Sam Griffin, an expert marksman replied.

I slammed my shoulder against the rock and turned the already-scared-shitless Hayes around. I pulled out the radiophone and listened for incoming traffic. The loud thrumming of the machine gun was distinct against the sporadic fire of the rifles. Townsend was up on the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, his finger jammed on the trigger. The thirty round magazine ripped through like fire and before you knew it, he was swapping out mags. Griffin fired once every fifteen seconds or so and paused to watch his rounds arc down towards the cave several hundred meters below. Alpha was right next to Bravo and wisely fired a couple of bursts into the caves to match or surpass the level of violence. Just then, a flash of light lit up the mountainside. One bang echoed through the mountains. One loud fucking bang. An RPG had been fired on us from one of the caves.

"Bulldog Actual this is Bulldog One One, we are at..." I paused and pulled out a portable GPS device.

"Grid 835 968, we have contact with fleeing guerrilla forces, over," I paused once again waiting for the reply.

"I've got a fucking jam!" Townsend's IAR was glowing a dull red with smoke rising from the barrel.

"Then fucking fix it and get some lead on those fuckers!" A round ricocheted off the rock in front of him, the zing fading right after the hit.

"Roger that Bulldog One One, what do you need, over," The reply finally came as another loud bang shook the Earth next to us...

"Fucking hell!" Hayes screamed, my hand gripping his pack kept him from moving.

"Taking fire! Light Weapons! Rocket Propelled Grenades! Requesting Air Support! Wait. Out," I yelled into the radio phone.

"Sergeant!" Townsend screamed just as an RPG streaked past the rock formation his was hiding behind.

"Bulldog One One, we have four F-35Bs in the skies. Callsign Dragon Five, expect them inbound in fifteen mikes," The radio crackled, Townsend was firing back at the caves with frantic ferocity.

"Fifteen fucking minutes? We can't survive that long with Sangs firing at us!" I yelled back into the radio.

"It's the best we got Bulldog One One. Take it or leave it," the harrowing noise of whistles echoed throughout the mountain, I looked over to Bravo and then back to the little dip.

"Hayes, get the fuck out of here," I ordered but he didn't budge.

"Hayes, get the fuck out!" I screamed and kicked him out from the cover we hid behind.

"But Sergeant, the enemy -" Hayes sputtered.

I saw him trip on a rock. Grabbing the back of his ILBE, I dragged him away from the cover and slowly ran towards Bravo. The entire Fireteam stopped and stared at the both of us. My left arm burned with lactic acid, my legs crying for oxygen. The edges of my vision started to darken and all I heard was my breathing. I heard a giant bang. The air rippled with heat. I felt something cut into my neck, arms, and legs. Warmth dripped down the cuts and into my clothes. I reached Bravo and dumped the radioman in front of them.

"Sergeant, you're hit." Private Hogan Gerald said from his entrenched position.

"No shit." I looked at my arms to see blood seeping out from the small red, exposed cuts.

"You should get it bandaged." Griffin suggested as I ignored him and crouched down.

"Sergeant, we're getting pounded! We need to get the fuck out of here!" Private Clark Johnson screamed from behind Townsend, he was Charlie's Assistant Machine gunner.

"Just simmer down, air support is on the way!" I screamed and slowly crouch to the right, a bullet zipping right next to my ear.

The bullet had already rocketed past my ear. I grumbled and lifted up my rifle until the sights cut into my eye line. Firing a few rounds into the cave, I continued to look out for small black specks in the sky. The whistling came again. This time I could feel the whistling shaking the ground through my boots. Left of me, Private Haye's eyes widened. His panicking and fear started to consume him. He started shaking horribly. He fell backwards and started to back away into a nearby crater.

"Hayes, get the fuck back here!" I yelled, he didn't respond.

"Hayes!"

I got up to follow him, my gear weighing me down. Hayes pushed himself off the ground and started running towards the dip. The training drilled into his muscles overriding fear and even common sense. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and placed me in a high even that drugs couldn't match. I was addicted to combat. Hayes was far faster than I was. He ran towards the ditch. The ground shook with the crater exploding into a cloud of dust. I felt heat tingling my body and liquid dripping down from my cheek. My entire body was numb, but I was focused on Hayes. The brown fog stung my eyes and itched my throat. Fuck, this was annoying. I heard a groan. Slowly the dust dissipated to reveal a mangled body covered with dirt and blood.

"Shit," I grumbled taking off my helmet and placing it next to the body.

"Medic!" I screamed shrugging off my ILBE.

"Yes, Sarge?" Lance Corporal Hughes Douglas, the team's medic and assistant machine gunner from Bravo asked as I groped around for my blowout kit.

"Oh shit, Hayes!" He crouched down and pulled out his own kit, "Come on buddy, stay with me."

Hayes was groaning as blood leaked from the corners of his mouth.

"Put pressure on his wound!" I screamed seeing a giant cut on one of his thighs.

"The mortars sliced into one of the major arteries Sergeant! If we don't clamp it, he's going to die," Hughes quickly explained as he pulled out a clamp.

"Hey, Campbell!" I yelled waving at the Alpha's Automatic Machine gunner.

"Yes Sarge?" He asked and fired another round into the caves.

"Come and give some help to Hughes," I ordered grabbing his weapons from his hands.

"Roger that, here's some extra clips," Campbell tossed me a bag full of ammunition.

"Come on man, stay with us," Campbell whispered.

I growled, angry and frustrated at both the enemies and the rookies. This was the second man I lost on the tour. The first one was sent back home in a coffin from an accident at the firing range. He forgot to put on his helmet and was practicing alone. An unlucky bullet ricocheted off a loose steel plate and straight into his brain. He was dead before he knew it. Screeching filled the air as four black specks darted through the blue skies. The F-35Bs have arrived. I slowly inched away from the squad's formation and made my way to Hayes.

"Lift him up," I ordered.

"But Sarge, he's -" Hughes sputtered with blood all over his hands.

"Now, damnit!" I had no time for this bullshit.

Hughes and Campbell looked at me with anger. They both gripped Hayes and pushed him upright. Hayes groaned with anguish and pain. I grabbed his radio pack and tried to pull the straps out from his armor. He screamed, blood pouring out from his wounds. I pulled out my combat knife and cautiously cut the straps loose. His screaming stopped, I nodded to the two Marines and held the radiophone up to my ear. The blood slick on the radiophone assaulted my senses.

"Bulldog One One, Bulldog One One, this is Dragon Five, respond over," The radio crackled as the jets darted over the mountains once again.

"Dragon Five, this is Bulldog One One, we are under heavy enemy mortar fire. We have a man down," I screamed into the radio.

"Roger that Bulldog One One, we are over the mountain range but you have to mark yourself. We wouldn't want a blue on blue now would we?" The pilots asked, as I groped around for a smoke grenade in my backpack.

"Dragon Five, I am popping orange smoke just a few meters from our position. The enemy is to..." I paused and looked at my GPS once again.

"…our East, give'em hell!" I lofted a smoke grenade down the mountains and looked up to see the F-35Bs banking back towards us.

"Roger that Bulldog One One, Dragon Five going hot. Attacking from South to North with two cluster bombs," I watched Hayes's chest moving up and down with his mouth gargling blood.

"Bulldog One One, report," the radio squawked in my ear.

"Bulldog One One has suffered casualties, one Marine, Private First Class Lucas Hayes. Requesting MEDEVAC and a transport chopper to grid 835 968. T2 Casualty," I whispered into the radio with the distinct pops coming from mortars hidden behind or inside the caves.

"Roger that Bulldog One One..."

Everything was dead quiet.

The enemy had stopped firing.

"Bring them home. Alive..."

The F-35Bs swooped in low over the mountain caps and deployed their ammunition. The CBU-97 cluster bombs dropped in pairs.

"Yes, Sir..."


	2. Chapter 2

One quick bang sounded, the outer skin being blasted off. Small little objects, which looked like canned foods, dropped from the bomb. Then, the entire mountainside exploded into a cloud of dust. The small little cans fired out explosives into the ground. I let out a sigh of relief seeing that no more mortar pops or enemy fire was coming from the caves. With the F-35Bs flying overhead, no enemy dared to face us. I dropped the radio pack and moved over to Hayes who locked eyes with me. His blue cloudy eyes clung on to life. I knew that he was fighting it, even though he was a Quaker in battle. I gave a slow nod to him. He just blinked once, slowly. The rest of the squad slowly moved back to gave their comrade some moral support. They all clasped his hands, those others patting his head.

"You'll make it," they whispered.

"Form a perimeter. I don't want any Sangs coming within a mile near us," the men nodded and touched their friend on the head. Hayes tried to give them a reassuring smile.

"Bulldog One One, what's the status of the mission," I looked over to the mountainside the bombs just dropped.

"Dead sir, but unconfirmed,"I answered, then the F-35Bs rolled in again, two teardrops dropping from their frames.

"Roger that, JDAM's out and RTB."

Shortly after, two bangs exploded and the shockwave jolted me backwards. That was the end of it. I gripped my rifle and waited for the helicopter. I became tired, numb and above all, my awareness was slipping away. The adrenaline was wearing off. Hughes had already stripped off Hayes's uniform to reveal his torso. It looked like minced meat, blood had covered the skin with slick red grime, while his cuts had exposed strings of muscle and moved with each of his breath. Hughes pulled out a white packet, ripping it in half and pouring it all over Hayes's wounds. The white powder made him hiss and gargle his blood.

"Sergeant, can you unfold the stretcher?" I gestured for three others to help me unfold it.

"Hayes, we're going to move you now. It'll hurt but just for a few minutes okay?" Hayes nodded slowly, his eyes fluttering.

"Fuck, he's slipping," Hughes wrote 'T2' with Hayes's blood on his cheek to denote the severity of the casualty.

"Bulldog One One, Bulldog Actual, where the fuck is my MEDEVAC?!"

"Five minutes," The reply came as I looked down at my left arm...

There was a sizeable cut on my bicep. Blood streamed down the grime riddled uniform and the red of the muscle gleamed in the sun. I grumbled, pulling out a roll of gauze while Hughes and Campbell attended to Hayes. I wrapped my arm around in gauze and forgot about it, Hayes was more important...

A few minutes passed and there was no helicopter. The men were starting to get restless with a blanket of silence falling over the valley after the fighters dropped their bombs. I looked around to find the helicopters a place to land, the area was sloped and was not enough to support a twelve-ton twin rotor helicopter. The peak might and it wasn't far either.

"Charlie, get up on the slope and give me a place for the bird to land," Corporal Taylor nodded and signaled his men towards the top.

"Hey Sergeant," Griffin slowly groveled towards me.

"Yeah?" I whispered, looking at the mountains.

"I'm seeing some weird movements over the slope of the mountains," he had a death grip on his rifle's foregrip.

"You sure it's not just fatigue?" I asked, scanning the steep slope riddled with rocks.

"No it's not fatigue, I'm sure I saw white cloth with a back end of an RPG," I nodded and waited for Charlie to report.

"Okay, form a perimeter along that slope and tell me what you see. We'll keep contact by radio," still nothing from Charlie.

"Roger that. Bravo, let's move," the four men cautiously advanced on the slope with their rifles raised.

"Hey Sarge," one faint voice echoed down the ridge, I looked up to see Townsend on top of the peak waving both of his arms.

"The LZ's perfect!" he yelled as I was about to scream back.

"Contact!" Griffin reported, his squad's rifle exploding into volleys of crackles.

"Man down! Man down!" The radio crackled.

I looked back to see Townsend crumpling into the mountain, his black silhouette disappearing. Griffin was heavily engaged with the Sangvis just right of me. Hayes needed to get up that hill and be grouped with Townsend. The sporadic cracks from the enemy's Warsaw Pact weapons signaled to me that they were close. I quickly ran over to Hughes who was trying to keep Hayes alive. Alpha had their weapons pointed towards Bravo to provide suppressive fire. I looked left to see one shape in the distance. My arms instinctively raised the rifle until the optics had lined up the single red dot against the tan of her head. I squeezed the trigger. Crack. Her head exploded into a mist of red, the girl falling forwards into the ground. The RPG in her hands detonating on impact probably from the twitch after her brain had severed connection with the muscles.

"Sergeant, the bird's here!" The radio crackled again.

"Alpha, get Hayes up to the peak," I ordered running forward and towards Bravo.

"My weapon fucking jammed!" one of the Marines from Bravo screamed.

"Fucking fix it!" I yelled back, seeing two of Alpha's boys helping Hughes and Campbell in lifting the stretcher.

The helicopters buzzed by our heads, one British AugstaWestland Apache AH1 attack helicopter leading a British Chinook and an American MH-60 Blackhawk transport helicopter. Two heads popped up from over the slope, their eyes locked onto Fireteam Bravo. Bravo answered back with a burst of fire to keep them at bay. Alpha was halfway up the slope with their rifleman giving the evacuating men suppressive fire. Another one popped up with an RPG slung on her shoulder, her white robes with a camouflage jacket worn over them fluttering in the wind. I lifted my rifle and fired. Crack, crack, crack. Three times I pulled the trigger. The first bullet missed, the second kicked up dust right in front of her while the third entered her stomach. She dropped the RPG and fell forwards, disappearing from the slope. A human would have died but unlike the first this one was clearly a doll, I could hear the curses and insults from where I was...

The helicopters were banking away from us, their rotors chopping the air with a constant rhythm.

"Charlie, pop smoke," I ordered into the radio and tapped Griffin's shoulder.

"Leapfrog towards the exfil point. I'll cover you," Griffin nodded and with three of his men ran behind me.

I lifted my rifle and fired a long sustained burst into the ridge with one of his men, Private Haul Do. He was from a long line of Vietnamese immigrants who served in the United States Military. His baby face often fooled other people from his hardened and often explosive personality. My rifle clicked empty, smoke rising from the dull red barrel. I slapped in a fresh clip and paused to scan the slope. I waved Do towards the ridge and waited for his signal.

"Bounding!" he screamed, the words reflexively coming out from training.

"Covering," I replied and crouched down to maintain a good firing posture.

"Clear. Covering," I stood up to see the three girls once again about to attack. The jacketed one was now very angry and holding a tan AK74M with a drum magazine attached.

"Contact!" Do fired off three rounds.

"Fuck, jammed again," he grumbled with clear frustration.

I slowly walked back towards him firing in single shots to conserve my ammo. Sporadic fire towards the peak told me that the other half of Bravo has us covered. Running up the slope, I picked up the radio pack on the way. The thing weighed what seemed like a ton of bricks. Thumping from the helicopter's rotorblades signaled that extraction was near. I could feel liquid dripping down my left arm. I payed no attention to it and continued my climb. The Gun fire stopped, Bravo was reloading. Do was busy trying to get the offending round out of the rifle's firing chamber.

"Do, get up that ridge with Bravo. I've got this," I fired another round into the slope to keep the enemy at bay.

"But Sarge," Do started, still fiddling around with his rifle.

"No buts Marine! Get your ass up there!," the helicopters hovered over the mountain peak, the Chinook's ramp lowered and locked into place.

The four Marines hiked it up the mountain while I fired the occasional round into the mountain side. I looked down at my vest to see three empty magazines and one, final clip partially empty. My vision blurred as my head became light headed. Dizzy and off the edge, I kept watch while Bravo arrived at the mountaintop. Glancing back, I saw Griffin wave for me to follow him. Dirt splattered at my face. The enemy dared to take out the lone Marine with an orbiting Apache helicopter overhead. I stood up and fired a quick burst into the enemy before quickly running up the mountainside to repeat the process. I looked up to see the ugly attack helicopter orbiting far above the mountains. Three yellow molten slugs flying from the underside of the beast and arcing down towards the slope. The mountain shook beneath my feet as the rounds slammed into the ground, kicking up dirt and rocks high into the sky. I tucked my head into the body armor, feeling the pebbles raining on my helmet...

"Scotty! Come on ye bastards, ye ain't killing him!"

A voice yelled from ahead of me, it was PFC Wilkins, firing a heli mounted M240B, the belt links flying and brass hitting the Blackhawks metal floor with small tinks...

I ran up with mountain with Campbell's M27 IAR and a radio pack. The equipment started to weigh me down and the mountain was steeper than it actually was. The peak was just a few meters away. Through gritting teeth, I heaved myself up the mountain and finally pulled myself onto the semi-flat peak. The rocky and uneven summit was engulfed in a torrent of dirt and soil from the rotors of the Blackhawk and the Chinook kicking up a gigantic hurricane of dust. I pulled out my goggles to protect my eyes from the offending wind. My squad stood next to the Blackhawk with medical teams quickly fixing up the messy job Hughes had done to save Hayes's life. Lumbering towards the now squad of thirteen, Wilkins walked out to greet me. The gale ate at my clothes and tried to swat the two of us off the mountain.

"How's the wounded?" I asked, giving the automatic rifle back to Campbell.

"Townsend had a minor flesh wound, a clean shot through the shoulder. Hayes..." Wilkins replied, lighting two cigarettes and handing one to me. I grabbed it and took a hearty puff off it.

"Severe blood loss, burns from the detonation of the mortar, trauma, you name it, he has it..." Wilkins continued, smoking as much as me, a female flight nurse walking over to him.

"Where's your CO? I'm here to give him the dog tags before we fly back out to Camp Bastion!" the flight nurse reported as I turned to her.

"That's me," I stated plainly, her eyes drifting down to the blood soaked gauze bandaging on my arm.

"You're bleeding."

I scoffed and ignored the comment.  
"It's just a flesh wound, far from the heart," I grumbled and gestured for Wilkins to board the blackhawk.

"It's not just a flesh wound Sergeant. The risks of infection and secondary bruising from the dirty ammunition the Sangvis Ferri use is high, we need to treat it now before it's too late." I felt like a child being scolded by his mother.

"I'll take care of the squad Sargeant, you go on with Hayes and Townsend!" Wilkins yelled from the Blackhawk.

Looking down at my wound and then back at the flight nurse. She was not going to let me go. I grumbled and nodded. I gave a thumbs-up to the Blackhawk pilot. The utility helicopter ascended straight into the sky before pitch forward and disappearing below the mountain peak. All that was left was the numb feeling of my arm and the stinging sensation of the wind. Balancing over the edge of the summit was the Chinook. It's two rear wheels gripping the ground while the forward portion of the helicopter hung in mid-air, a pinnacle landing. The pilots must be pissed at the both of us for taking so long. We ran in at an angle from the helicopter to prevent ourselves from being cooked by the twin engines of the Chinook. I stepped on the helicopter's ramp with the rear gunner waiting at an instrument panel bolted onto the side of the helicopter's inside. One last look before I flew myself off this forsaken land, this mountain range sheltering the cowardly bastards that injured my men.

With one last whiff off the cool and now warming air, I stepped over the ramp and into the cargo hold full of medics rushing around Hayes's body. The rear gunner smacked the Chinook's frame before raising the ramp. Brown dirt faded into blue sky as the ramp locked into a raised position, with just enough room for us to see into the terrain below. I grabbed a seat next to Townsend. The normally cheery and energetic Marine now silent, he looked like an empty shell with the shocking moments of the bullet penetrating through his shoulders replaying in his head with an infinite loop. The Ginger flight nurse inched towards me and pulled out her medic kit, her blue medical gloves stained with Hayes's blood. I grabbed her flight fatigues and yanked her face close to mine. She yelped with surprise as rumbling shook the Chinook.

"Him first, me second," I demanded, my instincts and responsibility as squad leader overriding all other judgments in my head.

"He's taken care of, you aren't!" She bravely retorted and smacked my hand away.

"M1, Op Vampire!" one of the flight surgeons yelled from the front of the helicopter.

"Kyle, Op Vampire!" she conveyed the message to the rear gunner.

"Bravo Zero Nine, Op Vampire, repeat, Bravo Zero Nine, Op Vampire."

Op Vampire,calling all volunteers to donate blood to the incoming patient...

I sighed looking at Hayes as the flight nurse ripped my bandage open. Sharp pain shot through my arm. I looked back down to see her dousing my wound in alcohol before pulling out a sewing kit. Metal wires and a needle. Immobilizing pain shot through my spine, my jaw clenched to control the pain. This was just one of many injuries I received on the battlefield. A stray strand of hair fell across her blue eyes. She quickly tucked the lock behind her ear and continued to work on my wound, the ginger hair now stained with red.

"M1? Quite the callsign..."

Her eyes turned dull, "That's actually my name. When I was created by G&K, the factory forgot to recalibrate the machinery that day, so I came out like this..."

"Like what? You look completely normal in my book..."

I reached inside my tactical vest and pulled out a treat I always carried, for the kids...and myself. I snapped the hard candy in half and popped the Ruby Red crystal into my mouth. I offered the other piece to her, now that she had finished her work.

"Huh? What is that thin-"

Before she could stop me, I flicked the small rock into her mouth, her face changing from that sad, stern look that everyone in this damn hellhole has...

"WOW! It's YUMMY!"

"It's called rock candy..."

Only two weeks left before I would leave this place, but it was nice to see a smile from someone, even if it is this little feisty ginger. I started to wonder why she had no name, and without realizing I ended up saying my choice out loud.

"Kate."

"Kate?" She asked, confused as to why I had suddenly said a random person's name...

Trying to not to turn beet red at being caught, I replied as sweetly as I could, as if talking to my own daughter back in one of the Safe Zones...

"We can't have a medic and not know her name, so I thought of the best one I could. Hope you like it." I said, smiling...

I could see the genuine happiness in her face, and as stupid as it sounds I felt like my humanity was returning just talking to this girl...

Little did I know I was about to get a lifelong partner, and a flying tackle in a moving helicopter. The result was the biggest bear hug of my life...


	3. Chapter 3

We touched down on a small helipad inside of the main Compound. I was the last one off the chopper, as I had to see to Hayes. The medics came in seconds riding 2 old Willy Jeeps with Red Cross symbols on each side door, one had a fifty caliber machine gun which was mounted on a 360 degree swivel on the back. They took Hayes away to the surgery tent, and that was the last time I saw him...

"Are you the Squad leader?" A man in British BDUs came walking up after the chopper had lifted off... Leaving 3 Marines in a G&K base; needless to say I felt a little out of place. His beret indicated he was a major, and the red was for the Elite 6th airborne...

"Yeah," I replied, sticking out my hand,"Perci-"

"We know who you are, all our Dolls here have bodycams that record everything... The commander of this base wishes to speak with you about M1 Garand, or 'Kate' as you call her. I will show you to your accommodations, and please...no questions, they will answered tommorow..."

This British major had caught me off guard but I was dead tired, so I went along with him. Grabbing my pack and rifle, I threw the pack in the rear of the Jeep and seated myself in the passenger seat next to the Major.

"Away we go then, step on it Monty..." I said jokingly, at least he had enough humor to laugh before lighting a cigarette and starting the engine.

"Right then ol' boy, should be no more then a tick!" He laughed, hitting the accelerator. The Jeep started to speed down the tarmac and turn onto a paved road, swiftly making the mile or two journey across the Compound seem like a 2 minute walk. These Jeeps might be old, but with a few improvements, many of the Vietnam War and earlier equipment is coming back from retirement. We need everything we can against the Sangvis Ferri, especially since I have heard rumors of rouge soldier groups joining their ranks...

While I was lost in thought we pulled up to a small building that already had the same model Jeep sitting outside.

"Oi, here have you, my boy. It looks like you have visitors. I will come by tomorrow morning and grab you to go see the CO. Orders from him are to rest. Especially since he said meeting him may cause you a bit of a Shock."

It was a small one story hut with a small AC unit built near a side window. The crème walls which were reinforced and well built seemed inviting enough. Its slanting roof left something to be desired. Maybe Kevlar lining in the slates to prevent shrapnel. Who knew? Stone foundations lifted the small hut off the ground and underneath was filled with sandbags and hescos to protect the officer's equipment underneath. There were the same buildings extending down the row in an endless line. Barracks must be elsewhere...

I sighed and walked up the steps. The door opened without even a creak, unlike FOB Utah's old and rotten wooden doors. Inside was Townsend, sitting on a bed complete with mattress, blankets and a pillow. Two tables, two beds, two of everything, mirroring each other on both sides. Kate sat next to Townsend with a small med-kit. Her hands were unwrapping his shoulder bandages. The two look pleased. I paid no attention and walked over to the table, placing my dirtied rifle and pistol on the wooden surface. The heavy body armor slammed onto the floor with a dull thud, my helmet clattering on the floor and rolling to a stop. I was tired and exhausted, But that didn't mean I could ignore all hygienic rituals before bed. A clean Marine is a healthy Marine.

Unwrapping the bandages, I could see the metal wires holding my skin together with evidence of dried blood. It was caked brown with both dust and blood. Near my rucksack was a med-kit. Inside was alcohol and a small white, dirtied rag used in countless battles throughout the Europe reclaimation...

I bathed the rag in dripping blue alcohol. Wiping the stinging rag on the wound, red, brown and black mixed together on the rag to produce a myriad of streaks across the fabric. My jaw clenched and tasted blood. I bit my tongue while constantly wiping the rag back and forth on the wound. Just what I needed, more wounds. Fresh white bandages wrapped around my arms next. Gripping the roll of gauze in my mouth, I pressed down hard with cotton padding on the wound to make sure no dust or dirt got in. Soft but rough fingers took my hands off the bandages...

"You really don't have to go through all that trouble. I am here you know," Kate pulled the bandages tight around my already weathered bicep.

"Like I said, I've done it many times before. It's not the sixth or so time – Medic," I enunciated the word and saw her look up at me with a glare.

"What's up with you Sergeant? You have a stag against us Dolls? Or the military doctors?" I scowled, it was an unusual question coming from her. Usually an intelligent woman such as herself would have stormed out in frustration a long time ago.

"Just anyone who gets in the way of me and my men," I growled but calmed myself after seeing her putting tape on my bandages, "thanks..."

"No problem," she smiled slyly, "in return, tell me your side of the story."

"What, my story?" I pushed myself off the bed and grabbed my assault rifle.

"Yeah," she said plainly sitting on my bed as I broke the rife open to clean it.

"Well, I enlisted when I was seventeen with my parent's consent. I was a designated marksman until twenty, got my break into Scout Sniper school at twenty two before enrolling into Recon school six months after that. Worked until twenty four until I got called for MARSOC and by then the doctors said I've been through too many explosions. Might have TBI, I was honorably discharged until the Sergeant who was supposed to be stepping in for 3/6 Charlie was killed. I've been their surrogate mother ever since," she just looked at me. What was that look for?

"That's quite the story," I laughed, re-accounting my own life was like a cake walk compared to the things I've been in...

"What's so funny?" she asked the confusion written on her face.

"Nothing, just something insignificant," I replied, looking over her shoulder to see Townsend about to go to sleep.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kate. I've got to school my ill-disciplined gunner," upon hearing the word, his eyes glanced over in my direction.

I saw her out the door and thanked her for taking care of both of us. Before she left, we exchanged a few pleasantries. Words like: Brit, Yank, Wanker and Shit Eater were used. After sending the feisty little ginger off, I turned around to look at Townsend. He had his eyes closed and the stench of human body odor swirling in the air conditioned room. He took off his armor and jacket but that was about all. His M27 propped up against the wall with a magazine inside, the fire selector glinting in the dim light switched to the safe position. I hated people like him with a carefree, do it later attitude. In battle, that meant life and death...

"Townsend, sit up and dump the mag from your weapon," I ordered in a soft but forceful tone.

He didn't move...

"Townsend!" I said once again, he sprang to life and quickly did as ordered.

"Yes Sarge," it sounded like he had something stuck in his throat.

"Do you know why we're having an AAR?" I pulled a chair from Townsend's desk.

"Because I was being stupid," he mumbled under his breath.

"What was that?" I asked, feigning my bad hearing.

"Because I was being stupid, Sarge!" he yelled so loud my ear drums felt like they were around to burst.

"That's good, you're a Marine. So yell out everything you say and make sure it's louder than the shit going down around you. And yes, because you were stupid," he winced at the last few words as I repeated them, "now how were you stupid, Townsend?"

"I went up on the summit and yelled down to you, instead of radioing it," his eyes averted mine, trying to hide the fact that he let me down.

"Look at me when I'm talking Townsend. We don't avert our eyes when we face death, we slap him on the face and say 'not today, fucker' because we're Marines. That's what we live for. Remember that..." Townsend nodded slowly and locked his light brown eyes with mine.

"Yes, Sergeant," he answered back, his voice loud and confident.

"Right. When we get back to Utah, you're on shit duty for a week and I'm increasing your fitness load. Six miles instead of five, fifty push-ups, with full six day combat load. Also eighty pull-ups, with full six day combat load." he groaned.

"No bitching, you got it?" I asked taking off my shirt and walked towards the door.

"Yes, Sergeant," he replied and did the same, but after his shirt was off he fell back on the cot. Right when I turned around to reprimand him, I noticed how tired he was though, and he did get shot today...so I guess I can let it slide.

I gave a small laugh, for any true Marine has been tired enough to sleep anywhere on anything.

"Time for a bath," I walked outside, half naked staring at the dim street of the residence area...

Walking to the showers, I followed the wood and plank signs you'd find on any FOB and Base. After walking for about 5 minutes I came upon the HESCO walled building with a tent top. I stepped through the wooden door, the window replaced with a bug screen.

However, it just wasn't my day today...

I had walked in with my eyes closed and thinking about Hayes. Big mistake on my part, as I didn't see a room full of naked women...so much for worrying about him. I had to worry about my own ass at the moment.

"Eeeeeeeek!"

"Es ist ein perverser!"

"Ulos siitä!"

Opening my eyes, I only had time for one word, "Sunofva-"

A short, brown haired girl in a ponytail was screaming, she had one blue eye and one red. Also, was that a cat tail? A small blonde one with the same ponytail and ice blue eyes was yelling something I couldn't quite understand. Then there was this angry looking German lady, with blood red eyes and white hair in a bun. She must've been the more outraged of the group, since she tried to knock me out with a punch.

She threw a good punch, but I could tell she hadn't much Hand to Hand combat. It failed to do what she wanted and i stumbled back a step, spitting out a good amount of blood. The blood starting to leak out the corner of my mouth. 'Damn this girl has a good swing', I thought.

"Good one," My mind was no longer concerned with relaxing, that German had flipped the switch in me,"Care to try a second time Lass?" I raised my hands up, and taunt her with my finger.

She threw a right hook which I caught with my right hand, but I don't stop the punch. I let it push my hand back and down to my side, at the same time grabbing her arm and sweeping her leg. While she was airborne, I pulled her up and over my head and landing on my back with her. The little ones were shocked, the blonde was shrieking while the brunette just stood there without moving...The white haired one was on the ground and swearing in what I could only guess was German.

"DO YOU TWO MIND?! MY GOD, SHUT UP!"

My first shout was to the small fry, which seemed to work, surprisingly. When I yelled at the German she went limp and stopped struggling...

When I got off of her, I turned my back for a second and that's when she ran over to a basket and grabbed something. I noticed what it was as soon as I saw the glint of a metallic tool, an old Nazi PPK carry pistol. Without a second thought, I threw my towel in her face, giving me around 3 seconds to pull my trick...

Reaching in to my back pocket, I pulled back the hammer and brought the small gun into view of the girls, Dad's .38 special he gave me when I deployed all those years ago...

The old man was dead now, but I always carried it in case. Now it was aimed right at the German's face. She ripped the towel off her face, saying something about fighting fair, but when she saw me in my fighting stance with the old revolver; She quickly realized that she did not have the upper hand anymore. They all stood there with a shocked expression, and the German help up the handgun.

"Ok, now that's settled, how about we defuse this little misunderstanding? Eh, lass?" I said, pointing the revolver at the Whit haired lady. The small blonde was looking like she was gonna cry, while the brunette still had her mouth open and was apparently in shock. The German seemed to know English as she slowly brought the gun down to here side, as I did the same...

I grabbed my towel, pocketed my .38, turned to the door and said to no one in particular as I turned to leave, lighting a cigarette as I opened the door. The blonde went to say something but I don't hear it and I didn't really care at the moment...

"Sorry, jus' wanted a shower..."


	4. Chapter 4

After the battle earlier and the total clusterfuck that was supposed to be my shower, I decided to call it a night. I was walking along the dirt path, not ten feet from the showers when I heard a familiar thumping sound. A deep thump, followed by a low whistle confirmed my suspicions...MORTARS.

Running back to the shower building, I kicked open the door and saw the three girls throwing on their uniforms and getting ready to leave, not even waiting to hear anymore bullshit I turned to the white haired lady and shouted in my most passible German...

"Mörtel! Lauf! Schnapp dir deine Waffen!" (Mortars! Run! Get to your Weapon!)

"Sie sprechen Deutsch?!"  
(You speak German?!)

"Ja! Jetzt beeil dich und Schnapp dir die beiden!" (Yes! Now hurry up and grab those two!)

She had a surprised face, probably wondering why a American was shouting at her in fluent German. Nevertheless...she grabbed an old Kar98k and turned to her comrades, ordering them to follow her to the commander's bunker. Having settled that issue we all prepared to run out into the open, and the explosions.

The four of us tore out of the building and I turned off to the right, down the same path I was walking seconds earlier. The girls went left passing by some bunkers and sandbags disappearing from my sight...

I started to sprint like a madman towards my barracks, and as much as I teased the man and berated him,I wanted that goddamn joking bastard at my side when the Sangvis attack. That was their trademark assault method, to soften the area with artillery and then send waves of suicidal Infantry. It reminded me of my Dad's stories fighting the Sangvis in Vietnam. Passing by a frightened mechanic, I didn't even stop moving as I grabbed him by the scuff of his fatigues and yanked him along with me...

"W-where are w-we going, s-sir?"

"You wanna die son?!" I yelled over the explosions all around us, another mortar round exploded about five feet away, "The Sangs always attack after barrages! Get your weapons and get to a foxhole!"

I shoved the kid along till we reached the barracks, the young man took off to one of the buildings down another path. I kicked open the door expecting to see a sleepy Marine, but what I saw actually impressed me. Townsend was in full gear, his weapons ready and loaded. He turned to me, his signature smile back.

"So...Sarge, ready to earn your pay?" He laughed as I put on my gear, but not before throwing on my BDU jacket. I grabbed my helmet and snatched up my M16, racking a round into the chamber.

"Damn right brother, now let's get to work!" I said with a evil grin, most people would be scared, but the crazy bastard gave me a smile just as evil.

"Time to pay those whores back for the hole in my shoulder." Townsend growled as he pulled his M27's charging handle.

We both went over to the door, and I got ready to run through hell a third time today. I could tell Townsend was nervous, so I gave him a bit of advice, "Hey! Remember if you hear the shell, your fine! Watch out for the ones you don't hear!" He didnt say a word but nodded his head and gave a small smile.  
I held up three fingers and began counting off...

"ONE!"

"TWO!"

"THREE!"

We both burst out the door on a suicidal run towards the trenches guarding the North end of the compound, the only edge of the base not ringed by cliffs and the only spot to attack. I could see many other squads of men and women alike gearing up and heading for the same spot. I spotted the young mechanic sitting against the sandbag wall and told Townsend to find a spot for his weapon while I approached the nervous kid. This wasn't his job, but I needed everybody who could fight on station and ready for a fight. This base was one of the few left standing after a brutal Offensive two weeks ago, we couldn't afford to let this base fall...not when Kate told me in the Chinook that Camp Bastion held over 1,500 wounded men and women. 600 of which are civilians, not soldiers...

"How ya doin' son?" I said in a more friendlier tone then earlier, "Stick with me kid, it is your first battle right?"

He looked up from his rifle and then at my outstretched hand, gripping it after a few seconds, "Thanks sir, and yes...the only fight I've ever been in was a brawl in MCRT."

"So...your a Marine too, huh?"

"Yes sir. Jim Nakayama of the JSDF! I was stationed in Okinawa, so I was trained by you Americans!"

Smiling, I waved him over to Townsend's position and we all got ready. The mortars had quit firing. Jim was making sure his Type 89 was loaded, Townsend was too busy filling magazines for the battle to notice. I was just standing there taking in the situation, a situation I realized was not on our side...

It was getting dark, we had no Night Vision and the mortars had stopped firing...it was gonna be a long night...

"On your left!"

"Get down! Grenade!"

"I'm out! Cover me!"

"Aaaahhh! Fuck! My arm!"

"Medic! Medic! Where is the goddamn Medic?!"

"They're charging! Hold the line! Remember Elsonborn Ridge!"

The fighting was typical of a Sangvis assault. Three waves, each more fanatical then the last. The fighting was fast and furious, soldiers on both sides dropping like flies, but thankfully it looked like the Sangs were taking the worst of it. I was shooting over my left at a squad inside a shell crater. Townsend was shooting on full auto, changing out mags after every 30 rounds. Nakayama was throwing grenades to keep the horde at Bay while we fought the Assault teams. A M1A3 tank rolled up behind us, swinging it's turrent into firing position.

"Naka! Townsend! Get down!" They both immediately fell into the dirt, hands over their heads...

The 120mm gun opened fire with a massive roar, the Gunner on the fifty cal spraying everything in sight as the turrent continued to throw shells over us and into the plateau below. I could see the Sangvis were massing again for another charge, the final wave of suicidal Infantry. The Gunner of the tank made a low grunting sound and slumped back down into the hatch. What I assumed was the tank commander screaming for somebody to help...

"Get on that gun! Someone! Get on that fifty!"

I gave my grenades and rifle to Nakayama, and told him and Townsend to cover me. I dashed over to the Abrams tank. Climbing on top, I stuck my head into the turrent hatch and saw the driver using the Hull's thirty caliber. The radio Operator was holding the Gunner, his hand over the kid's chest trying to stop the bleeding. The loader was firing the gun as fast as humanely possible. Looking at the Tank CO, I gave him a nod and hopped into the turrent, examining the M2HB.

The Browning was jammed, giving some insight as to why the kid caught a bullet.  
I yanked the gun's handle and checked the firing mechanics, finding no issue I gripped the gun so hard my knuckles began turning white. I was pissed that the Sangs would attack civilians, I couldn't stand anymore of the damn atrocities...

"You want to dance?! 'Mon then!" I screamed as I pressed the trigger, the MG barking to life, firing bullets the size of cigars. I began shooting on my left, sweeping the gun to my right, cutting down droves of Sangvis and screaming taunts all the while. Jim had run out of grenades as was now shooting with his Howa Type 89, dropping enemies with every shot. Townsend had scrounged a M1919A4 Browning LMG from somewhere, getting his revege by spraying the enemy with the 250 round belt, killing almost as many as I did in my rage...

PFC. Jimmy "Draco" Wilkins was taking a nap when he was shook awoke by one of the Marines from 3/6 Charlie.

"Sir? Sir! I got a radio call addressed for our unit and since you are the ranking member left, you need to answer it!"

Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Draco replied, "Yeah...yeah...hand me the damn radio."

The young Marine reached over and handed Draco the receiver. Afterwords, the young soldier took his seat back on the Blackhawk, talking with his buddies.  
Draco yawned again as he put on the headset and brought the mouthpiece closer, what he heard didn't just wake him up...it scared the living hell out of him...

As the message was playing, he looked out the window to see a mass of Blackhawks and Chinook formations all heading in the same direction as his chopper. Grey dots zoomed past the Helicopters, breaking the sound barrier as they flew past...F16 fighter jets...

"We have 9! Confirmed! Repeat! 9 divisions of Sangvis attacking Camp Bastion! That camp holds over 1,500 wounded, the majority refugees from Fallujah and other zones! ALL UNITS, REPEAT ALL UNITS! DEFEND BASTION TO THE LAST MAN! We have CAS and Apache gunships inbound! Godspeed Troopers! Broadsword out!"


	5. Chapter 5

The Sangvis were getting very close, throwing grenades into our trenches and foxholes, causing many wounded and deaths. The screams were unbearable. Grown men crying for their mothers, Husbands wishing for their wives, Wives crying out for their Husbands. Kids, no older than sixteen, conscripted into this hellhole, never having a chance to live their lives...

It reminded me of Elsonborn Ridge, in the Ardennes. The Ridge was a base just like this one, except it was overrun by the Sangs. Only myself and a few others escaped the massacre that followed their Victory. Everyone was slaughtered, even the children and elderly. What frightened me was the fact that this battle was playing out just like the Ridge. We thought we had won, but then they launched another charge, just like the one we are currently fighting...

This wasn't the Ridge however, and the sacrifices of our comrades have caused a wave of ferver over the civilian populace, many stories and tales passing through the net of the WWAPA.  
The World Wide Anti-Panic Act, as it was known, was created to heavily censor the media because of the catastrophic loss in lives early on in the war. The stories of the men and women who fought at Elsonborn, defiantly in the face of certain death, had become a rallying cry among the armies of the World. I was proud to call myself not a survivor of Elsonborn, but one of the 'Heroes of Elsonborn'...

Just as the first Sangvis troops came within 20 yards of our foxholes and trenches, a mighty war cry erupted from our side. I turned around to see the Base Commander standing in full military dress uniform, wielding a sword. He was flanked on both sides by groups of five, the only ones I recognized were the girls from the shower debacle on his left. On his far right, I spotted Kate, her calm and cheery personality replaced with a look of defiance and anger. She carried the weapon of her namesake, a M1 Garand, a bayonet attached. She held the rifle with confidence, as if she had fought in countless conflicts and wars. The commander raised his sword his into the air, bringing it down to point towards the mass of Sangvis soldiers. He stood amongst the bullets and grenade explosions, and shouted three words above the noise of battle. A War Cry of Defiance for our troops, and a grim reminder of the past for the enemy...

"REMEMBER ELSONBORN RIDGE!"

The hundred or so of us left able to fight, rose up out of our defenses with the Sangvis soldiers not more than 30 Feet away. Wielding any weapons we could, we charged towards the enemy repeating the commander's words as we charged with him. Using rifles, knives, bayonets, even bare hands and pure determination not to let the enemy repeat the same atrocities. I had my bayonet in my hand and a grenade in my left, Townsend having the same as me. Nakayama had grabbed his pack and now threw it to the ground, revealing a Japanese Wakizashi. The few of us with grenades left, threw them at the enemy mass in unison, the grenades going off so close to our own soldiers that I caught shrapnel in my cheek. Many others had suffered similar cuts, but we pressed on through the dust and smoke to emerge upon a startled and unprepared foe. A terrible melee ensued...stabbing, bashing, shooting, clubbing, punching and choking. It was every man for himself, each busy with his or her enemy or enemies...

Nakayama was busy dealing with a Scout. The glints of metal slashing and sparks were the result of both of their efforts. Nakayama finally got the uperhand though, when the S-Doll had mistaken his feint for a strike. He slashed low and cut her heel, reddish oil seeping out of the wound. She fell to her knees and felt a sharp pain as Nakayama brought the blade up again, cutting a wide gash in her back. She looked up at him as her walked into her view, her face a mixture of Pain and Anger. He brought the Wakizashi above his head, and holding it both hands, he cleaved the small sword down with incredible strength; striking the Doll in her shoulder.

"You fought well," He said in a surprisingly calm tone, "It is a shame it was for the wrong side."

The Doll smiled, with the same reddish oil leaking from her mouth. "I am happy to have found my equal in battle..."  
She died without another word and Nakayama kicked her lifeless robotic body off his blade. I had no idea where Townsend was in the melee, but at least I had some sense, shouts and insults told me he was still alive in this mess.  
There was a shout of anger behind me, directing my attention away from the gigantic brawl. It was the jacketed Sangvis Guerilla from before, a thick bandage now covering her wound. She was about 5 feet behind me, a look pure hatred etched upon her face, she gripped the bandage covering her stomach with one hand...

"You! Oh hohoho, this will be sweet..."

She snarled at me, the malice from her words evident by the sound of her voice. She dropped her AK74M and raised up her fists, taunting me with a flick of her wrist. I gave a grin as I let my knife fall from my hands, and placing the revovler away as well, I got in a brawler pose. No fancy tricks like before, this bitch wanted a fight, she was gonna have one...

I closed the distance between us in the blink of an eye, my blood boiling over in rage. I landed a punch to her jaw, which surprised her, taking a few steps back as she spit out some of that reddish fluid. Not wanting to give her any respite, I pressed my attack with a big right hook. Landing that blow I continued to hit her until she managed to stop me. She had her head down and was looking at me so I decided to throw another right hook, she caught my fist in her hand, another smile starting to form on her lips.

"Not bad...You actually managed to hit me..."

"Well you don't survive this long by being slow!" I retorted. I threw another punch with my left, but she caught that attack as well...

"Now it's my turn..."

She realeased my hands and ducked under my two punches, she then used her enhanced speed and strength to launch a flurry of blows. I took jabs to the face, a shove to my chest and a kick to my head. I blocked the kick to my head, but just barely, I could already feel a bruise and swelling in my left arm. She planted a kick into my chest, knocking the wind out of me and sending me sailing into the dirt. She had on a grin of pure evil as she strolled over to where I was laying, coughing up blood. She planted her heeled boot on my neck, trapping me between her boot and heel. She began laughing as I struggled for breath, digging her boot even deeper into the dirt.

"HAHAHA! Is this all the fight you have?! Its Pathetic! I'll end your life, like I did for your radioman...what was his name again?..."

My vision was getting blurry and I barely had any strength left after fighting all night. I made one last attempt to shake her off me, to no avail, she was just too strong for me at the moment. Just as my conscienceness was fading, I caught a glimpse of bright grey steel flying over me at incredible speed, striking the Sangvis in her right shoulder. She stumbled back, allowing me to push myself away from her and catch my breath. The Doll who had thrown the blade now stood over me, her bolt action rifle splintered and the stock shattered. She wore a Colonial Era Jacket with American Blue and Red colors. She looked down at me, and I was surprised to find her face calm and composed, despite of the terrible battle that raged around us...

"I'm sorry for not helping sooner, however...the evacuation of the civilians was successful...it's time for us to leave..." She explained to me.

I didn't even know that the Commander had ordered the evacuation of the base. It made sense now as to why he had sent down the order for everyone to fight their last breath...it was to buy time for the civvies to escape. I struggled to get to my feet, and when I did, I pulled out my revolver. I aimed it the S-Doll's head, but I was stopped by the Colonial woman. She grabbed my arm and pushed it back down, but I shrugged her off, keeping my eyes focused on the enemy...

"Get off me! This bitch shot Hayes... I'll be damned if she leaves this place still drawing breath!"

The Guerrilla Fighter had fell to her knees, the blade that stuck her mere inches from the mechanical heart she possessed. She still had the same look of hatred, but our fight had taken it's toll. She looked at me and with the same evil smile, gave me a warning for the future, although I did not know it at the time...

"B-Be wary...G&K P-Puppet... The Red Queen ap-approaches..."

"I don't know or care for who you speak of Murderer...all I know...it's this is payback..."

Without another word, I pulled the trigger on my .38 special, the bullet going into her forehead and out the other side. She slumped to the ground, massive amounts of oil leaking from the hole in her skull. Looking around, I noticed the battle was over, just a few Sangvis trying to still fight. They were quickly surrounded by the odd fifty or so of us left standing. They tried to resist capture, raising weapons in defiance and were met with a hailstorm of automatic weapon fire. They stood no chance, being cut down where they stood, many receiving multiple gunshot wounds. Such was the brutality of this war, a war for the very right to survive...

I watched the G&K Doll walk over to her commander, I would thank her after everything calmed down. I stumbled my way back to the sandbag wall and sat against it, a long and heavy sigh escaping my breath. I reached into my chest pocket and pulled out the photo of my kids. They were the only thing keeping me sane in this hellhole. I sighed again as I tucked it back into my pocket, retrieving my cigarettes at the same time. I pulled out one, and tried to use my lighter but my hands wouldn't stop shaking from the adrenaline rush earlier. I finally lit the cigarette and slumped back against the wall, looking at the Carnage that had ensued.

Bodies...Bodies everywhere...

Hundreds of brave men and women had fell in battle, but it paled in comparison to the enemy losses. Thousands of Sangvis had died on the plateau in front of the base and hundreds more inside the inner compound, where we had staged our last stand a few hundred yards from the Helipads. I noticed Townsend and Nakayama talking about the battle, each in the same beat up condition as me. Nakayama had been cut on his left cheek, and had mud and dirt all over. Townsend looked like he got into a bar fight, bruises all over and his sleeves torn to shreds. We were all busy licking our wounds and caring for the wounded. The heavy cases being taken to the hospital tent, which was still operational, because of it's position by the Helipads. A loud roaring sound started to echoing from the valley, prompting us few survivors to take shelter behind the sandbags once again.

Peeking up with a pair of binoculars that Nakayama had handed me, slowly turning to look out into the plateau. A massive dust cloud was creeping towards us, but I was focused on the vehicles creating the cloud. I noticed the huge turrents and treads...

"SONUVABITCH! They got tanks! GET DOWN!" I screamed as they opened fire on our position, many of the first shots missing, but that wouldn't last long...

Sangvis Tankers were dreaded among the frontline troops, fanatical to the death and never surrendering. It didn't help much that they had tough armor, and enough firepower to wipe out entire squads in an instant. I screamed for a radioman, a soldier rushing over to hand me the receiver, the frightened boy not older then eighteen. I tried to radio for help, to anyone who would listen, but all I heard was chatter from other units. I was about to throw the receiver at the kid, when I heard a familiar voice over the noise. It was Draco, that crazy bastard...

"Scotty! Sargeant, come in! SARGE!"

"Where the hell have you been?! We been getting our asses kicked down here!" I shouted into the radio, tank shells flying over and around our positions...

A shell exploded inside the trenches, wounding a few unlucky soldiers, the few medics left standing quickly ran over to and dragged them back into safety. Those medics were fearless, they never let a trooper die, if they had a chance of saving him. Those tanks we're getting closer, now I could see the Tankers in the Gunner hatches, fresh troops riding on the back...

"Look to the left of the base! Also...might wanna get your heads down!"

I looked to my left and could hardly believe what I saw, over a hundred dots littered the sky. I could see about 70 UH60 Blackhawks, packed to the brim with soldiers and door gunners. The rest were Apache gunships, the globe, eagle and anchor of the USMC in full view. More dots appeared from the clouds, much faster than before, and went streaking straight towards the enemy tanks. They took no evasive maneuvering on their runs, flying through the torrent of machine gun fire. They launched their rockets and fired their guns in unison, the sound of their Vulcan cannons unmistakable. Many soldiers jumped into the air, shouting cheers and hugging one another...

"Warthogs! Tank killers! We're saved!"  
Shouted a young woman, hugging her friend, a woman who was busy cheering at the jets.

"Dear Lord! I thought we were dead..."  
Uttered another soldier, leaning against his rifle.

The A-10's had finished their rocket runs, and turned to fly Southwest towards the sea. I vowed if I ever saw one of those pilots again, I'd buy them the whole damn bar. The Apaches came swooping in and hovered over the base in a wide circle, each chopper facing a slightly different direction. The Blackhawks came in pairs next, disgorging squad after squad. The first squads jumped out, weapons at the ready, but when they saw the body strewn battlefield, many stopped in their tracks. Some of them even dropped their rifles in shock, the weapons hanging at their sides by use of slings. The sight definitely wasn't pretty; bodies, shell craters, body parts, bullet cases everywhere...

"Holy-"

"What the hell happened here?!"

"Get the medics! Get them over here! Now!" Draco shouted over the roar of the helicopters. His face a mixture of Pain towards his fallen brothers and sisters, and extreme hate towards our enemy.

"I'm not sure anyone that was hit survived..." A young corporal said, staring out over the carnage.

"Get those damn medics...get them now...we are gonna save everyone we can..."


	6. Chapter 6

The battle was over...

I stumbled around, holding my arm, the skin now bruised and turning black and purple. I came upon a bunker that had suffered a direct hit from the artillery barrage, the front blown open and a torn piece of uniform flying on a metal pole sticking out of the concrete. It was both a awe-inspiring sight, and a gruesome reminder of the bloodshed.

I took a mental picture of the sight, something I often do to record the events later on. I have a scrapbook of paper, the leather worn and pages torn, but they are my records. Drawings of what I went through...what WE all went through in this war...  
I walked over to the medical tent, and found a combat medic doing Basic Aid. He quickly bandaged my arm and wrapped it in a cloth sling, at least it was my left, so I can still use my dominant arm. I bummed a smoke of him, and continued my way over to the command bunker, which was overrun but quickly cleared out and now was back up and running. I wanted to thank that Colonial T-Doll, and I also wanted to speak to the Commanding officer, we we're supposed to have a meeting this morning...

I was stopped by the guards on my way in, and they questioned why I requested entry into a secure area. I laughed at the two Dolls, but quickly turned my gaze to one of pure bloodlust. My right arm shot down to my waist, pulling out my issued sidearm; a Colt 1911. It cleared the holster in a flash of grey steel, and I pointed the gun sideways so they could clearly see the weapon. They stood there, shocked. I slowly spoke, my intentions very clear...

"This is a Secure area?! Hah! This is Security! A weapon and ammunition, you know why?! It's because of shit like this...The battle that just happened! Now you WILL let me in, I WILL speak to the Colonial Lady, and I WILL have a audience with whoever is THE FUCK IS THE COMMANDING OFFICER!"

I put the gun away, and took a second to compose myself. The adrenaline was still flowing like a river, and I had snapped. Looking into the girl's shocked and scared faces, I realized I had gone too far, apologizing to them as I walked through the doorway. I pulled out my flask from my canteen pouch, the pouch on my left, and took a hearty swig of genuine Scotch from my homeland. I whistled to the guardswomen, one of them turning to look at me as I tossed the flask to her. Her Kalashnikov fell to her waist, attached to a sling. She stared at me for a second before taking a equal pull from the alcohol, and smiling. She handed the container to her compatriot, who nodded and drank with one hand, still holding her old Soviet PPSH41.

"Listen, when we all get sorted out, how about we go for a drink and clear the stress, huh?" I spoke in a more friendlier tone, raising my hand to tell them to keep the flask till later in the evening. The Kalashnikov girl agreed to meet me at the bar, as well as the one holding her PPSH. The issue settled, I continued my way into the command bunker, making my way to the back room, where I could see a group of officers huddled around a table and map...

"1,600 wounded, 879 dead, of the wounded...I'd say...500 can fight...at least man a foxhole..."

"Can we hold the base?"

"We have 2 platoons combat ready, that's 82 men for a base that requires at least 900 personnel! How do you expect us to mount an effectiv-..."

I entered the small room, the door creaking, the discussion halting at the sight of me. I was covered in dried blood colored oil, my left arm in a sling. Dirt and dust covered me from head to toe, my uniform torn in places and my sleeves almost gone. One of the Officers, a woman in a Air Force Dresstook one look and started to yell for a medic. The same British Major, from two days ago, slapped the Lieutenant over the head, and dismissed the young medic who came running to respond. I glared at the soldier, who seemed confused, he got the point, running back to his post. I settled my stare back to the British major, who unlike the others was unfazed by the stare...

"Did we get them out?" I spoke, wanting to know if our sacrifices were worth it...

"We did...All of them..." The major responded. His cheery personality replaced with a look of a Veteran, I had known he was different. He had seen the war at it's worst as well...I turned to leave through the door I came through, Stopping when I heard the Air Force Lieutenant telling me to come back...

"WAIT! We need someone with combat experience, all of us except for the Major were flown in with the Reinforcements..."

"Yeah...speaking of that...where is my unit? 2nd Marines, 6th regiment." I turned on my heel, the question and my glare stunning the Lieutenant. She tried to give me an answer but was stopped by someone entering the room.

"W-We have all the Marines in the Trenches guard-OFFICER ON DECK!"

The Lieutenant snapped to Attention, as did the rest of the room. I spun my heel and was greeted with a new uniform, one I haven't seen before. The General was a imposing sight, his blonde hair covered by a red beret and shaggy moustache, a big cigar in his mouth. He wore a completely black uniform, with the same gear as a foot soldier, his only indication of rank was the stars on his helmet. Four stars. His emblem was impressive, a silver medal with an angel wielding a sword on her left hand and a gun on her right.

"I'm here to find Sargeant Percival Cameron, and his Unit. I also have been informed to state that the TDoll Medic 1924-31-4 has been transferred to said Sargeant's Unit for the foreseeable future..." The general began, his voice carrying authority as he threw a small folded piece of paper on the metal folding table. The British Major leaned over and took the note, reading every word with great care, not saying anything till he finished the small paragraph...

"Artemis...They're gonna strike the heart of the enemy Operations in this sector! You! My boy are about to invade Hell with the best of the best!" The Major said with pride. I stared shocked at the Major, then the General, and back to the Major.

"Wait a Second... I'm not sure if-"

I was cut short by the General raising his hand, "Sargeant. My Organization has been finding and recruiting the best Men, Women, and Machines to help bring this war to a end..."

"Okay, but why would you want to go to the worst battlezone in the Middle East? To recruit a grunt?" I asked, the surprise evident in my voice. "Why would they want me? I fight, that's all I know how to do anymore...after all these years..."

"Precisely my good man. I have looked into your file..." The general began...

"Rushed to join the war effort at eighteen. Fought in Eastern Europe during the early days of the Blitz, lost your best friend and many comrades in arms...then you, ten thousand soldiers and 79,000 Refugees retreated to Elsonborn Ridge..." He continued, each word carefully spoken, as if reciting a poem.

My stoic personality was crumbling, revealing a tired and war weary face and eyes. Everyone in the Room was quiet, all eyes on myself and the Four Star General...

"In two days, the defenses were overrun. There would have been no survivors, had it not been for a young corporal...one who rallied the troops in a suicidal charge against over Two Hundred Thousand Sangvis Soldiers...Some say he died of his wounds that day, Some say he didn't make it to the last Helicopter out,Some say He was the first soldier to charge from the trenches and disappeared in the hordes of enemy troops. I THINK..." The General voice rising, as if speaking to everyone to now...

"HE IS RIGHT IN FRONT ME..."

I looked up at the man, having my head down while he had talked. I wanted to be angry at his words, I wanted to hit him, but they were the truth. A few Officers were whispering to themselves, as if trying to determine the truth in the rumors, many couldn't imagine the bloodshed...BUT... You can't get angry at the past. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. I reached into my leg side pocket and pulled out a Blue Beret, numerous pins and medals stitched in, placing it on my head.

"Just tell me where you need me to go and what to do with my men." I said, rather calm, despite the emotions swirling around inside me. The General had me walk with him outside to the waiting Chinook, we talked as we made our way over to the helipad.

"Well, I need you and yours to come with me to our Headquarters in Sicily. More precisely a base in Southern Sicily, where you will gather a full company of Troopers that will become the trial run of a new type of trooper. I mean everything from being a Rifleman to Fully Qualified Specialists capable of doing the most important job. WINNING THIS WAR. We need someone to Train, Lead, and Fight with them...CAPTAIN." He explained, taking a puff of the big cigar, and putting emphasis on certain words...

In my mind I was astounded, to be the leader of new kind of Trooper, with a Elite Organization with enough resources to field an experimental unit...

We had reached the Chinook and the ramp was down, I was pleased to see my entire unit inside. I also spotted a tiny little combat medic, the tiny ginger up front in her flight fatigues and talking with the pilots. Everyone seemed happy to see me, smiles all around. Kate turned around and gave me a glare, presumably because of my wounds. There was a metal crate loaded into the front of the hull.

"Well...I'm off to Sicily... Sir." I said to the Shaggy General, at the same time another soldier ran up and threw an old dusty duffle bag onto the ramp.

"We collected all your gear, plus your personal belongings and put them in your bag...I'll see you again when you assembled your men and are ready for War...Captain..."

The General saluted me as the Heli took off, the shaking causing me to grip the hull. He threw a small metallic object at me before the Helicopter was too far off the ground. Catching it, I grabbed my bag as the ramp began to close. I found a seat closest to the ramp, throwing my bag onto the seat next to me. I collapsed on to the seat, covering my face with my beret, and let out a long sigh. I heard the rustle of cloth, lifting the beret to peek with one eye. It was Draco, in the seat opposite of me, a smoke hanging from his mouth. We both stared at the other for a second, before he nodded, not saying a word. I returned his nod and looked to my left to see Kate making her way over to us, taking the seat beside me. She looked into my eyes with a happy expression. It kinda baffled me that she could be so cheery after a battle, but I didn't say anything...

"Well...looks like I'm with you now, for a while at least! It has been a stressful day though...so why don't we all get some rest?" She exclaimed, changing her voice to a softer tone on the last part. She started to look at my arm, carefully taking it from the sling and placing it across it her waist. She opened her medical satchel and began to disinfect and bandage the bruised areas...

I closed my eyes and let out a small sigh, afterwards letting the beret fall back onto face. "Agreed..."

We were off to Sicily...on a mission to gather 150 troopers and train them to bring the fight to the enemy. Our first assignment is to, for lack of better words...Invade the most heavily base in this theater, the enemy stronghold in Tobruk, Egypt...

I thought back to the object the General had thrown me, a British Victoria Cross with two bars...Damn that man...He must have really looked into the past to find one of my medals from Elsonborn. I was too tired to be angry for long, so I took the beret off and I slipped the medal from my pocket. I attached it to the right side, along with 3 purple hearts and a French Croix De Guerre...

"Time to turn some kids...into warriors."  
I whispered deep in thought, "Maybe we can finally bring the war to those Sangvis Bastards for a change..."


	7. Chapter 7

December 23, [REDACTED]

[Nine months later...]

[Southern Sicily, Legionnaires HQ]

"Fuck off!"

"Come on Scotty, it's the Christmas dinner," Draco said. "Or Hanukah, no, not that. It's the December banquet, we have one every year, you've never missed it."

"I said fuck off didn't I?"

"You know, Kate is going to be there…"

"The whole base is there, alcohol is like honey to them," I interrupted. My statement probably lacked strength, considering that I had a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand.

"…and you might receive your own little Christmas miracle. Maybe she'll wear that sexy underwear for you," Draco continued unperturbed.

"I don't care."

"Yes you do, you've been chasing after her for like forever!"

Ok, forever was being used loosely here. It had been nine months since I started feeling myself attracted to her (more than in just fantasies anyway), but most of that time had been spent training the company or away from her on missions.

"Sexy underwear…" Draco threw in again.

Now I don't know if it was because as a man I was drawn to attractive women in skimpy clothing, or because the alcohol in my system was messing with my judgment, or because I actually wanted to go but was just being a stubborn asshole, but I agreed.

"Fine, I'll go," I mumbled.

"Great, that way I won't be alone," Draco said merrily.

"What happened to that Delacroix chick anyways?"

"I dunno, I think I'm in the friend zone," he said sadly.

I laughed, probably louder than was considered appropriate for this situation, but Jimmy was royally screwed. Once you were in there it was a bitch to get out of.

"Hey, maybe you'll get your own Christmas miracle," I said.

"Fuck off!" he said. Funny how positions change so quickly isn't it.

I laughed for some more before deciding that standing up was probably the best thing I could do right now. I took care not to fall face-first into the floor, but my body handled it pretty well. It was, after all, the body of a drinking champion, so I was cool. I put on a shirt and splashed my face with water. Nine months ago I normally would've splashed my hair as well, so it didn't look like I was a lazy bastard that had just gotten out of bed, fortunately, the short haircut that I sported right now was a good way to avoid that. It had been forever since I had been actually forced to get a haircut, I usually asked the ships barber to trim my hair every couple of months. That way my lovely head would look even lovelier. I had my hair down to a mohawk. Not my style, but admittedly, I didn't look as bad as I would've expected.

"When is the banquet?"

"Twenty fourth," Draco reminded me.

"Christmas Eve then?" I asked. For a multi-national, multi-religion organization, ARTEMIS sure liked things Christian.

"What day is today?" I asked.

"Twenty third."

"Already?" Time flies when you spend your days drunk in your room.

"Yes, already."

"Ok, let's do something," I said.

"Firing range?" He said, throwing the idea out into the open.

"There isn't much else to do now is it?"

Five minutes later we were both in the firing range with our pistols and Draco's LMG. I had been itching to try out the weapon since I last saw it in action, but I'd ask Draco to borrow it later on. Now I just had to shake off my drunkenness by shooting at targets. That way I could pass off for a superb shooter instead of a Deadeye Marksman.

"How'd you manage to get in the friend zone?" I asked while putting up my target.

Draco glanced around before answering, the only other person in here was a Corporal about thirty spaces away, so we were safe. "I think I was too nice to her."

"Pretty sure that's not the reason," I said.

"Well, somewhere along the line I said something wrong, because now she treats me as a friend," Draco explained after emptying his LMG ammo box.

"You know I'm not good with girls, I can't really help you there," I said. "Mind if I borrow that?" I asked, pointing at the M60.

"Yeah, no problem," he said as he tossed it towards me. "What do you mean you're not good with girls? You got Layla, who was hot as hell, that redhead chick in the pub, who was hot as hell, and now Marina, who is, coincidentally, hot as hell. Your life is like a bad sitcom about single life."

"Well, that's three girls, I never went to school with girls, my uncle sent me to an all-boys military academy, so I'm not big on dealing with high-school troubles."

"They're not high-school troubles," Draco complained. When he said that I realized that despite both of us being in our mid twenties, we still had been in the military for a considerably long time in the past years. That meant that our brains had the maturity of someone a couple of years younger than we actually were. Yeah, it would get worse with time...

I grabbed the LMG, feeling its weight for the first time. It wasn't as heavy as you'd expect, but still heavier than anything I was used to, except the MG36. I grabbed a box of ammunition and pushed it into its slot. Then I pulled back the gun's bolt.

"Jimmy, why don't you tell her how you feel?" I suggested.

"Don't say that, they only say that in romantic comedies, also, I am a fucking Legionnaire for God's sake, I'd come out as soft."

"Maybe she likes soft," I said as I shrugged and aimed at a caricaturized elite.

"Why would she do that?" Draco asked.

"She's an Army lieutenant, maybe she thinks of herself as strong and wants a softer kinda man," I said. I had no idea what I was talking about.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Draco asked.

"I try not to..."

I fired a couple of rounds in quick succession. The gun was fully automatic. It fired about as fast as someone could've fired a semi-auto rifle, but it didn't require the shooter to continuously pull the trigger, something which might throw your aim slightly off. My first two shots completely wrecked my target, so I was forced so switch to a metallic plate. Those were reusable and were only switched once they were so bullet-ridden that they barely functioned as anything other than scrap metal. The target I was aiming at right now was simply a metallic sheet a few inches thick without any shape whatsoever. It was relatively new, because I could still make out the lines that marked your score. I decided to aim for the general center of the thing and fire the rest of my ammo.

The LMG roared for a second and a half as it ate through the rest of its magazine. Maybe it does fire faster than semi-auto...I told myself. I took a moment to take a look at my target and it turned out that the blasts from the Machine Gun had dented the metal sheet in the area where I had hit it.

"Hmmm, nice gun," I told Draco. I tossed him the gun and pulled out my pistol, this time I chose Sangvis for targets.

"It is a nice gun," Draco agreed.

"Of course it is," I repeated, "I bought it for you..."

Pavel mumbled something and then we resumed firing, my shots eventually left a perfectly intact Scout without a head, while Draco ate through targets like it was nobody's business. We didn't talk to each other for a while. We were just deep in thought. He was certainly thinking about his predicament with Lieutenant Chloe Delacroix, I was thinking about that would have happened if we had evolved with tails...

We'd probably use them for balance, or perhaps they would have the same function as hair, being only cosmetic in purpose. I know, we could use them as third arms, to grab stuff without needing to stand up… But what about clothing in cold places? Would we hide them in our pants or simply have another opening for our tails? Maybe people in there would just grow shorter tails… Perhaps we would cut them short as soon as we were born, just like those dogs… I forget their breed….

Yeah, it went a little bit like that.

"How are you going to dress like for the banquet thing?" Draco asked. The banquet was supposedly important, we only got it once a year, so people usually dressed nicely. At least that's how it went in other bases, it usually turned into some sort of drinking contest/frat party whenever we did have it in our base.

"I don't know, why don't you ask your new best friend?" I said, pretending to be hurt.

"Aw screw you man."

An hour and a half later I was asking Kate and Draco was asking Me how the hell we were supposed to dress like.

The next day, a few minutes before the dinner 'officially' started, I was dressed up in black fatigues and a flack t-shirt. It was my usual outfit, Kate had said that it would be a casual diner, so that's what I wore. If she was wrong or lying, I could always change to my buttoned shirt (which surprisingly, was black as well) instead. Right now I was worried about who I would sit with. Normally I could have tons of fun with Draco alone, especially since the December Dinner was famously known to be one of the few times that Command allowed for alcohol to be dunk on the base grounds. You could have fun by yourself if there was a faithful bottle of jack next to you.

"Hey Scotty, when are you changing?" Draco asked from behind. I turned to face him and was surprised to find him dressed in full dress uniform.

"I thought you had burned that," I observed. "And what are you? Twelve? Asking me when I'm going to change…"

"Well, seriously, we're all supposed to be down there in five minutes," he said, meaning the hangar, where the dinner would be taking place in.

"It isn't obligatory Jimmy, I can show up whenever I want," I said.

"Oh, right, forgot about that," he said.

"Drac!" someone called. "You ready yet?"

"Coming!" he returned.

"What. The. Fuck?" I said. "She gets to call you 'Drac' and you're not even screwing her," I said.

"Shhhh! And fuck you," he said as he turned around.

"See you in a while Drac!" I said as he left. He simply flipped me the bird and did a variety of other insults that required body-movement but not speaking. I laughed all the way until he disappeared in a corner.

I headed back to my room. It was supposed to fit six soldiers, which meant that it had six bunks and six closets. It would've been pretty cramped for six, but it did the job with just two. I opened one of the spare closets. It was filled to the brim with metallic crates marked with the logo of ARTEMIS. These crates contained an assortment of items. There were a few boxes of experimental ammunition, some had drum magazines, other had spare clothing, and some even had medical equipment. Mostly they contained alcoholic beverages and cigars. They were from that raiding operation back in Carentan.

I grabbed a bottle of some scotch from the topmost crate and took a swig from it, putting it back in. If I was going to have fun at this thing, I was certainly going to do it my own way.

I walked all the way to the 'banquet hall' by myself, it seemed like most people were already there. Well, there was a good bunch of people in the hangar. The Blackhawks had been hung to the ceiling with some giant claws that were supposed to secure them. Those claws were rarely used. The Blackhawks provided a space of about four meters from the floor to their bellies. It was more than enough for what we had in mind right now. There were tables covered in white sheets all over the place, even the chairs were covered in white. It looked very formal to me. For a moment I felt underdressed, but then I realized that most NCOs were dressed like I was.

"Over here!" Kate waved. I would've smiled at her if she hadn't said that the moment when the entire complement of the Base managed to shut up and hear that, then they all turned to face me. Had I not been a battle-hardened veteran, I would've blushed. Fortunately, they resumed their conversations moments later.

I sat down on Kate's table, it was occupied by me, her, and a pilot I've never seen. There were a couple of empty seats. There was a nice piece of bread waiting for me. Someone had torn half of it and now I had half a piece of bread to eat.

"Where's the food?" I asked.

"Hello, how are you? You look lovely," Kate said, obviously mimicking what I should've said.

"Kid?" I said, turning to the pilot, he was only about nineteen.

"We got waiters," he said, obviously excited.

"Really?" I said as I raised an eyebrow. Other dinner/banquets in the base had simply been buffets of sort. Then it turned into a drinking contest, as I preciously stated.

"Yeah, Brooks said that he managed to pull in a couple of favors and bring us an extra tasty dinner," the young pilot explained.

Sheppard! Aha! That's his name! I thought triumphantly.

"So, what's the deal with that guy?" Sheppard asked, pointing at Krikor Darbinian, the XO of the marine complement on base for transfer to a new frontline. Yes, he's an asshole. Right now he was simply eating in the table that had the COs and XOs of the Army and Marines on base, with the addition of Captain Brooks. The only guy you could relate to, he had climbed the ranks like me, having to prove his worth in battle. Brooks was also the CO of the Marine detachment...

"I don't know, but he is a rather magnificent asshole," I pointed out.

"I know, he actually stopped me and yelled at me for something involving slouching. We're not even in the same branches, he's not allowed to do that."

"Technically he is, still, bit of a dick move."

"I'll drink to that," Sheppard said as he raised his glass. I clinked it with mine.

"How about that big guy? The other Legionnaire."

"Draco? What about him?" I asked. I was one of very few who knew his real name, Jimmy Wilkins, most everyone just called him by his callsign...

"No, I mean him and that Army chick, why doesn't he just bang her already?"

"Bang? Seriously? Who says that?" I teased.

"Ok, have sex with her," Sheppard relented.

"For a moment there I though you were going to say make love," I teased him again.

"Shut up," he said with a smile.

This kid is actually kinda cool.

"Apparently he's in the friend zone," I explained.

"Uh-oh, that's trouble," Sheppard said, he had enough experience with woman to know that. Pretty much everyone knew about the ghastly friend zone.

"Tell me about it," I muttered before taking a healthy swig from my beer. I hope that they brought out the strong stuff soon; otherwise I'd have to sneak in a bottle of vodka.

From that point on Sheppard and me had a lengthy conversation about the futility of neo-impressionism on the impact of art in general. Nah, just kidding, we had a rather fun conversation which was primarily focused on criticizing the people around us. We were having a hell of a time doing an impression of one of the Navy lieutenants when I realized something, we had been leaving Kate out of the conversation. Right now she was staring at the wall, hear hand holding up her head. She only had to blow her hair away from her face to complete the image.

"Kate! Hello, how are you? You look stunning!" I said after a pause in the conversation.

"Ha, ha, very funny," she said, obviously not convinced.

"No, I'm serious, you look beautiful, doesn't she Sheppard?" I asked. She truly looked good. A little makeup made her already pretty face even prettier.

"Umm… sure?" he said as he drank from his whiskey. He obviously felt awkward about this.

"You really think I look beautiful?" Marina asked, her voice just louder than a whisper.

No, I just fucking made it up, I thought.

"Yes, you do," I said.

Draco saved Sheppard from further awkwardness and ruined the moment for Kate and me. Kudos for him. Asshole.

"Hey guys, how are you?" he asked as he sat down.

"Good," we all said simultaneously.

"Ok, it was creepy that you all said that at the same time," he noted. No one said anything, it had sounded slightly creepy.

"So, what's the deal with you and that army girl?" Sheppard asked.

"Well, seems to be that I am in the friend zone…" Draco said almost sadly.

"Ah, the dreaded friend zone. What are your plans for it?" I asked.

"Well, apparently it's impossible for me to get out of it, it's like a black hole."

"I know. You're screwed." Sheppard said.

"Word," I said.

"Why don't you just tell her?" asked Kate.

"What, that would never work," Draco said outraged.

"Yes, that's stupid," Sheppard agreed.

I abstained from commenting, although I agreed with my fellow male soldiers.

"No it's not," Kate said, obviously annoyed that they hadn't taken her seriously.

"How would you know?" Pavel asked.

"Well, for starters, I am a girl."

They both stared dumbly at her for a few moments before they could come up with an answer. Kate was quick to chastise both of them for thinking that she would know nothing about relationships and whatnot. I've rarely ever seen Jimmy looking worried or scared, but this time he was looking like he could've put a gun to his temple and fired it just to get out of this situation.

Thank God I didn't say anything. Thank God I didn't say anything, Thank God I didn't say anything, Thank God I didn't say anything, I kept telling myself.

"You say something?" Kate asked.

"No," I replied quickly.

"Seriously, because I could've sworn that…"

"No, I didn't say anything."

"Oh, ok," Kate said I could see a small grin on her face when she turned around to keep intimidating Draco and the new pilot. I wished I could've had some popcorn. Kage was really laying on Jimmy, who looked like he wanted to hide in his own dress uniform. It's not often that you see a Legionnaire veteran fall prey to the quick talking of a blonde that was at least seven inches shorter than him. Draco is 6'5, I'm not entirely sure how tall Kate is, haven't gotten around to asking her.

Anyways, Draco soon left the table and returned to Delacroix and the other officers. Seems like they didn't mind his presence, because he didn't return to our table for the rest of the dinner. Instead, he actually managed to put his arm around Dela while talking to the other men. She didn't look annoyed by it, so perhaps Pavel wasn't so deep in the friend zone as it seemed. That point was hotly commented in our table.

"Well, this is boring as fuck," Sheppard said. "I'm out of here."

"Agreed, you should've been here three months ago… or maybe not," I told him.

"Wanna bail?" I asked Kate.

"Sure, why not?" she said.

We all stood up from our table and headed out of the hangar. The food we had received was worse than cruiseliner food, but it was manageable. We tiptoed our way around the labyrinth of tables and chairs before we parted ways. I clearly remember Draco giving me an almost imperceptible nod before I left. I am not sure if it was because he was doing well with Delacroix or because I was leaving the place with Kate holding my hand...


	8. Chapter 8

December 24, [REDACTED]

Southern Sicily, Legionnaires HQ

[Base Codename, Juno]

"Cap! Hey Cap'n, Captain! Scotty wake up man! Scotty, Scotty, Percy! Wake up goddamit! Percival Cameron! WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

You can tell that I didn't wake up feeling exactly happy. The hangover from last night didn't help either...

"I am awake! Fuck," I mumbled.

"Draco what the fuck?" Kate yelled as she pulled up the covers.

"I finally scored with her!" Jimmy said. I instantly sat up, pulling the covers and eliciting a yelp from Kate, who was forced to pull them back up to cover herself.

"Good for you buddy!" I said happily. "It's long since been coming,"

Despite the fact that he had rudely woken me up, scared me half to death, and seen my new girlfriend half naked, I was glad for the big guy.

"No, it's not good."

"Why not?" I asked. "You couldn't… you know… make your marine stand at attention?"

"What?! No!" he said outraged, flipping me the bird, he knew I was teasing him.

"Then what?" Kate asked. "You… um, didn't measure up to expectations?"

"Or perhaps time flew by," I suggested.

"You know what?" he said. "Fuck you guys, both of you," as he said that he stomped away from the room. Had the door been hinged, he certainly would've slammed it against the door. I would bet money that he was in the hallway, chuckling and calling us dickheads...

"Wow," Kate said. "It must've been really bad."

"Tell me about it," I said while scratching my head.

I left the barracks an hour later, dressed in my new uniform. BDU MARPAT trousers, black shirt and BDU Jacket. I had to cover my eyes to avoid the momentary glare from the sun shining on my eyes. Kate had left a few minutes after Draco, sneaking out through the back door. She didn't want anyone to stop her and report the illegal relationship between her and me. Not that it was entirely illegal, we were from different branches, I think...

"Morning Commander!" called out some marines that were doing a morning run across camp. I nodded at the men before I walked off the small porch.

Ok, you probably need a little bit of context here, so let me explain the situation. There had been some Sangvis scout ships detected a few weeks earlier, they had done quick recon of the Mediterranean Sea before leaving. Presumably a larger force would return to finish the job, so a rather large fleet had been sent here to break up the offensive. Most civilians had relocated from their respective towns or cities to Triton, one of Sicily's safe zones.

The entirety of the forces on hand had been divided into two, the largest section was sent to Triton to protect the civilians in case the Sanvis showed up, while the smaller one was deployed in Safe Zone Juno to serve as a stalling force in case the bastards attacked earlier. Safe Zone Juno also happened to be the site of our new base, if you could call it that, we had just started building permanent buildings a week ago. The small base had only just begun to take shape...

"Captain."

"Lieutenant, good morning," I said as I saluted Yevgeny Nezarian, the leader of the Army Rangers contingent attached to our base.

"It's almost noon...Captain," he informed me.

I glanced at the sky to confirm that. "That late already? Why wasn't I woken up or something?" I wondered out loud.

"Oh, the marine sent to do so decided to avoid you the embarrassment and skipped waking you up."

"Oh," I said as I tried not to blush.

"Don't worry, we all need some semblance of being normal every now and then eh?"

"Damn right we do," I said.

The man saluted me once more before he left. I was standing alone in the middle of the improvised camp that had served as my home for the past nine months. The entirety of ground forces available to the Sicilian Government were also here, tasked with defending a relatively significant plateau. Strategically significant that is. We were basically camping in an area that was higher.

I walked through a couple of Armadillo IFVs before stopping in command. Those fuckers we're gigantic, with two levels of floors. They had 24 foot tires, and gun turrents that resemble a WW1 tank. Ramps were used to haul almost anything, from a rifle to a fully loaded combat company complete with tank support. Command happened to be a larger building that was actually made of concrete and not simply a tent made of cloth. I talked to Captain Sharma, who said my services weren't required.

"What am I to do with my Legionnaires?" I asked.

"Right now, nothing." She had replied, without looking up from her map.

I sighed deeply in disappointment, I was really beginning to get bored. I decided to take a walk around our makeshift camp, passing near tanks, Armadillos, Apaches, Chinooks, and Blackhawks. If you had looked at our camp from the sky, it would've looked like there were a lot of people in here, not just a small Company with a few Reinforcements. Eventually I tired of walking around in the scorching sun of Juno and decided to return to my room. On the way there I found Draco.

"Hey man, you want to tell me what was so bad about spending the night with Delacroix?"

"You mean Chloe?" he asked. "Well, no, I won't tell you."

"Come on man, you know we were kidding," I said, referring to the earlier incident.

"You were still an ass about it," he said.

"What are you? A nineteen year-old girl?" I asked surprised. "Just tell me what was wrong," I said.

He took a deep breath before he went ahead. "Ok, at first everything went like normal, we were having a little fun and getting touchy feely, as she says, so she proposed we go to a Chinook…"

"Nothing wrong with that…" I muttered, my previous evening had gone much like that.

"Shut up...Once we got there…"

Jimmy didn't get to finish his story, since in that precise moment, two loud blasts from a Bullhorn put the entire Base on high alert. We headed towards our barracks to armor up while the rest of the camp went to the armory. I stripped down to my underwear so that I could put on my undersuit before putting on my armor. Why? You might ask. Well, some egghead had designed these new suits to protect against blades and bullets. It would only stop a 9mm bullet, and maybe a bayonet. Any protection was better then none at all...

"Do you think they got the balls to attack us?" Jimmy asked while putting mags into his chest and leg pouches.

"Dunno." I said while strapping on my helmet.

I grabbed my new rifle from my locker, a British L85a2. It had a slower fire rate than most other rifles, but the gun could go full-auto and was accurate up to a thousand yards. I had attached a foregrip, shaved down the barrel for Close Quarters. I also paid the armory staff to attach dual optics, a red dot sight on the side rail and a SUSAT for longer range engagements..

Draco grabbed his M60 from the adjacent locker, a 200 round box already loaded in the weapon. He pulled the bolt to load a bullet in the chamber, making a loud and weirdly satisfying sound. He gave me a thumbs up, since we now had our balaclavas on. It was part of the new combat uniforms, which included red shaded combat goggles that completely blocked our eyes from outside view. They also had a small screen over the left eye, to display orders from command and also predetermined routes to the targets.

After we were both looking like grim reapers in armor (Draco now referred to himself as Grim on account to the scythe he had drawn on his helmet), we headed out towards command. Unsurprisingly, we were stopped by one Lieutenant Krikor Darbinian, but we pushed our way through the man and faced Captain Sharma again.

"Ma'am," I said.

"Ah, Captain, Sergeant," she said, nodding at each of us in turn. "Looks like the Sangvis have finally decided to show themselves," she explained.

I refrained myself from saying "about time", instead, I simply nodded.

"The Sang force consists of four ships," she explained.

That was good, our fleet was composed of about twenty something ships, including three Nimitz-class carriers in addition to several destroyers in addition to our new frigate. The frigate was directly under my command, to be used for naval fire support or moving troops to new locations on the giant battlefield.

"I presume that means that we won't be forced to fight," Draco half-stated, slightly disappointed.

"On the contrary Staff Sergeant…" Sharma said with an uneasiness in her voice.

"Oh, crap." He groaned.

"Yes, one of those ships happens to be a supercarrier."

"Godammit, fuck!" I exclaimed.

Sharma simply cleared her throat.

"Sorry ma'am," I said.

"Never mind, we are moving to a better position, this is just a glorified hill, a giant piece of sand," she said. It was true, our camp had set up in a giant dune. It provided a higher vantage point, but was still a dune.

"We're moving here," she said as she pointed on a map, "This place is the closest in miles that actually has rocks as surface instead of sand."

I peeked at the map and saw it already had some lines and circles scribbled on the hills. The highest one was circled with blue and arrows pointed at it. Looked like that would be our new base.

"What are we to do?" I asked.

"Borrow two mongooses from a Chinook, then head out that way. You'll act as scouts, radio us back if you find anything interesting." She told us, using the codename for ATV motorbikes.

"Ma'am," we said simultaneously before we left.

Draco and I headed towards the section of the camp where all the Chinooks had landed. I headed specifically for Mary's Little Lamb. Not for any obvious reasons, but because I knew that there were two vehicles of the type that I needed inside of it. It also happened to be the aircraft of Sheppard, the pilot from the party. He was going through his pre-flight checklist.

"Hey Captain!" said Sheppard. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to borrow your mongooses," I said.

"Sure, take care of them," he said.

"Don't worry, we'll return them intact," Draco said.

"Like I care, I don't get to use them," returned Sheppard.

By that time, we had already hopped on the two bikess and driven them of the aircraft's bay. A route displayed on my goggles, the transparent line showed the quickest route to the hills in Sharma's map and headed out. My route from command had displayed various waypoint markers that we had to go towards instead of a line really. They weren't positioned in a straight line, we would have to climb through huge dunes for that to work, but instead had to take long detours around the place.

"So, Jimmy, you ready to tell me what went wrong yesterday?" I asked, suddenly remembering our interrupted conversation.

"Oh yeah, I was saying, that we were inside this empty Chinook, she's taking my clothes of and all of a sudden…"

"Staff Sergeant, do you copy?" our radio interrupted us.

"Yes ma'am, I copy." Draco replied, hitting the button on his throat mic

"How's your progress?" Sharma asked us.

"We're fifteen minutes out," he said.

"Wow, you move slowly," she replied.

"Well, maybe you should've sent a Blackhawk," I suggested.

"Probably, but Bianco wasn't willing to risk one, even now they are moving at slow place. Supposedly, they can't be identified from our satellites that way."

"Ok…?" Draco questioned.

"Yes, that's what I thought too Sergeant, talk to me as soon as you reach the hill," she ordered and left the conversation.

"It's Staff Sergeant," Draco muttered.  
He had got a promotion, because I needed a smart XO.

"Well, as I was saying…" Draco started.

This time we were interrupted yet again, only that it wasn't by our own, instead, a nice tiny AH-6 popped into view from right above a hill. It immediately spotted us and started positioning itself for a strafing run.

"They're here already?" Draco asked. I looked at him and shrugged in response.

"What now?" he asked calmly.

"Normally, I'd say we hide," I joked.

"Great, you start digging while I distract it," he said.

"Ok, go," I said.

"What? Really?" he asked surprised.

"No idiot, I'll draw its fire, you just use your M60," I told him.

"That's more like it," he said as he started breaking apart from me.

The Little Bird finally decided to attack and started spraying my mongoose with Gatling guns, I managed to avoid being hit and passed right underneath the helicopter, I turned around and shot it a couple of times as it turned around for a second strafing run. This time it got peppered by fire from Draco, unfortunately, a couple of shots made contact with my bike, blowing away some of the metallic pieces of the vehicle.

I floored the accelerator and started heading sideways so that the AH-6 had to turn to shoot me. The heli was flying a meter above the ground, it was at time like this that I wished I had grenades, but a regular M9 would have to do for now.

"Jimmy?!" I exclaimed into my mic.

"On it," he calmly replied.

I turned around after a few seconds to see my friend toss a grenade into the path of the speeding Little Bird. It detonated just as the heli passed over it, blowing out the rear half of the craft and sending it crashing into the ground. It hadn't been flying high, so it simply skidded through the sand until it stopped.

"Nice one," I said, complimenting my friend.

"I aim to please," he said.

We headed towards the wrecked AH-6 with our weapons aimed at the wreckage. The Little Bird tilted to the side a little bit and we found ourselves facing a Sangvis pilot missing her legs. She was obviously in pain, but still managed to snarl at us and try to grab our legs with her hands. We didn't go closer, it was still a enemy, which meant it was still dangerous. The markings on her helmet displayed a red crown with two swords crossed behind it.

"So it's The Elite Corps then," I stated.

"Looks like it," Draco agreed.

"Ok, let's go," I said.

We hopped on our mongooses and left the dying, bleeding Sang to its fate in the vast desert. She was going to die no matter what, and I wasn't going to waste ammunition.

We finally reached the hill ten minutes later. We stopped to take a good look at it before contacting Captain Sharma. The hill in question was a regular-looking hill. It was roughly round in shape, with slopes that weren't steep at all. It got better higher up in the hill, as near its top it had a cliff of sorts protecting the summit. Around it there were two smaller hills. All were made of the same dark brown rock.

"Captain," I spoke into my throat mic.

"Yes," she answered, the sound of vehicles was evident on the other side of the channel.

"We're here, found a lone helicopter patrol on the way here."

"Yes, it seems like the carrier has already landed. Two of the enemy ships were destroyed at the cost of seven of our own. A third SCS-class cruiser was damaged and rendered inoperable, but the supercarrier managed to save most of its crew and equipment. The ship landed some eighty kilometers away from the hill."

"Too close," I said.

"Unfortunately, yes, but the Navy is already launching an operation to disable its engines, we currently lack the firepower to actually destroy the craft." She explained.

Those things were as deadly as… well, as deadly as supercarriers. Only five we're known to be in existence, there's nothing that compares to it on any side of the war. The Ship is actually almost thirty fucking kilometers long, equipped with hundreds of cannons and aircraft. They were also big enough to deploy a small army's worth of troops and equipment. Those things were large as fuck...

Hours later, the hill was bustling with activity. The tanks had been dug into trenches to serve as stationary artillery to defend our base. The summit of the hill was covered with AA machine guns and missile pods, all of the Armadillos had been placed inside a recently-created cave, around that cave camouflage netting had been set up to house all the equipment that the IFVs needed to run. The Helicopters had been landed on the top of the hill, which was flat enough to serve as a decent landing pad for the aircraft. The Apaches were simply placed near the slopes of the hill and the Chinooks along with the Blackhawks had been landed on the side facing away from the direction of the enemy. Regular troops had set up their tents in the slopes of the hill, while officers and command was on the better-protected summit.

"Johnson's regiment and the sixtieth will move in to cut off any air dropped troops here and here," Major Hernandez was telling Sharma. "Then they will take out…" he looked at Draco and me.

"Oh, don't worry, I called them in," Sharma said.

The Major ignored us and resumed his jargon, my mate and I headed towards a corner of the tent to talk to Nezarian.

"What do you know?" I asked.

"Seems like the Navy strike succeeded, they managed to eliminate the ship's capacity to actually move," he said.

"Already?" Draco asked, surprised. "That was quick."

"Yes, unfortunately a dozen boats were sunk," he stated. "They used cruise missiles to take out its anti-ship guns, looked like about five of them from what I've heard, then a few shots to the ship's rear took out its engines. They might've managed to wreck the ship's cannons, but I don't have confirmation on that."

"Shit," I said. "A dozen ships?"

He nodded. "The Frigate didn't take part in the attack, too important to your unit. We also needed some artillery support, so she's off the coast about 5 kilometers away"

"I see, so now what?" I asked.

"Well, we take out all of the troops from the ship, no other way around it, the few bombs that we have will be used to stage attacks on the ship, so I doubt that we'll simply get bombs to fall on this desert."

"You're telling me we're about to start a campaign for this little piece of sand?" Draco asked.

"Seems like that's the case..."


	9. Chapter 9

December 25, [REDACTED]

Southern Sicily, Legionnaires HQ

[Base Codename Juno, Outpost Alpha]

It had been the case. The carrier still had one particular weapon, which served to ward off any ship that came nearby. So far it had only destroyed a frigate that had come here to give us supplies. The supercarrier had literally sniped the frigate from around fifty kilometers away. The frigate had blown up and rained pieces all over the place, some of its crew managed to bail out in time. A few of the other regiments in Juno had gotten their supplies. So far we could manage, but bringing supplies from any of the three remaining ARTEMIS ships was a lengthy process that involved loading Helicopters and shipping ammunitions and food to us instead of simply bringing them all at the same time on board a ship.

As I was saying, the rail gun that the supercarrier sported prevented any ship from making an approach to the strip of coastline near our outpost. It could literally blast away at a frigate that was fifty fucking kilometers away for Christ's sake...

Our camp was still a camp and we were well supplied, we would last a long time in this place if we were required to, but for now we were content to wait for the reinforcements that had been called for.

"No reinforcements for now," Brooks' hologram said.

"What?" said every single person in the room. There were seven people inside, a very coordinated response.

"The Navy is busy on other fronts, they can't afford to send a single ship to this battlefield, especially if they can be destroyed from halfway across the sea," he explained. "However, they have not forsaken us, so we will receive freighters with supplies, although I seriously doubt that we will be receiving any speciality weapons."

"Captain, what does that mean for us?" asked Hernandez, a frown covering his face.

"For now, you fight." Having said that, he signed off.

"Well that's just great," Darbinian started. "How many apes are on that ship? Twenty thousand?" At least."

"Twenty thousand Sangvis, not apes," Sharma said.

"Well, regardless, what do we do now?" asked Chloe.

"We could simply stay here and wait this thing out, only fighting when the enemy comes to us," suggested Hernandez. "This is a pretty defendable position."

"I don't think any of the soldiers here could wait that long," murmured Yevgeny.

"I agree," I said.

"These men are soldiers, they need to fight,most of them want to fight," Draco said.

"Because they are recruits!" Darbinian said, outraged.

"May I remind you that all of these men had seen combat more than once?" Nezarian said.

"We can't fight alone against them," he complained.

"Well, we do have a couple of other regiments not far," Delacroix said. "We Won't be alone, just saying."

"I think we should stay here," Darbinian said.

"How the hell is he your executive officer ma'am?" Draco asked Sharma. I elbowed my friend for his comment. Darbinian simply stormed off the tent, visibly angry.

"Is he allowed to do that?" Draco asked again. This time I let it pass.

"He's just under a lot of stress," Sharma said.

"Not important," Yevgeny Nezarian said. "What do we do?"

"If we won't wait out, I suggest that we wait only a little longer to see what the ground troops will do," Major Hernandez said.

"Sounds good to me, sir," Lieutenant Delacroix said. It seemed like part of her shyness had disappeared, although she still blushed for things I considered rather insignificant. Jimmy told he loved that.

"No raids?" I asked.

"Or sabotage?" Nezarian threw in.

"Not even some recon?" asked Draco.

"I guess we could do a little bit of mayhem," muttered Captain Sharma.

"That's what we're here for ma'am," I said.

The troops that were on board the supercarrier plus the additional ones from the SCS-class battlecruiser had all been dropped to the ground, with only a few remaining on board to serve as command and control. There were roughly 25,000 enemy ground soldiers in addition to air and ground vehicles. We barely amounted to a division. We had 10,000 army soldiers and marines. A small division at that. Fortunately, humanity tended to triumph in overwhelming situations whilst on ground combat. It had been joked that it was 3-1 in the air and sea for the Sangvis, but they were 1-3 in ground combat. I secretly hoped that that was the truth...

Right now, Draco and I had been sent to do some recon. A small Sangvis recon squad had decided to move towards our direction, while other larger forces had moved to face the rest of the Allied forces. The fanatics were eager for carnage and we would give it to them soon enough.

"What do you see?" I asked Jimmy. He had his binoculars out and my scope's zoom only went so far.

"Well, not that much really, they've got tanks, artillery, Helicopters, and a buttload of infantry. Nothing out of the usual."

"Leadership?" I asked.

"They haven't left the command tent yet, but I have spotted a few Majors and Captains, so it looks like they are lead by a full-fledged Colonel."

"So this recon mission was simply a recon mission," I stated. "Well that's disappointing," I said as I slung my rifle over my back and headed back to our mongooses.

"Wait, wait!" Jimmy said.

"What?"

"The Colonel stepped out."

"And?"

"Uh-oh," he said. "They're moving out."

"Now?"

"Yes, we'd better go, like right now," Draco said.

We hopped on our bikes and followed our trail back to Outpost Alpha. It had been named like that because it was "The Alpha Dog!" according to some stupid marine. At least they hadn't called it Hill Something. That would've been unoriginal, and God forbid something be unoriginal.

We made our way back in a matter of minutes, we even spotted a few Ah-6 attack choppers behind us, but they didn't seem to spot us. I'll give the mongoose that, even though it is a glorified dirt bike, it certainly has acceleration. The sandy desert made it less prone to tip over when it hit a pebble, but it also slowed it down considerably. I was glad with the exchange of performance issues. Seemed like all of our scouts were too. Also, dunes made pretty nice ramps.

"Did you see that?" Draco asked excitedly. "I must've jumped at least three meters high!"

I smiled through my balaclava and depressed the accelerator, using a smallish dune as a ramp. It was a fantastic jump, I managed to fly about five meters high and a lot more than that in distance. Fortunately, I landed on a relatively flat stretch of sand, so I didn't end up killing myself over some stupid trick.

"Impressive, even I'll admit it," Draco said.

We arrived at Outpost Alpha and made our way to the rocks that protected the summit and command. We did some hopping and climbing before we finally reached the top.

"They're coming," Draco said.

"Oh, we know, we do have drones scouting the area," answered the major.

"Then why did you send us on recon?" Draco asked with an annoyed tone.

"Well, you were obviously restless, so we decided to give you something to do," Sharma said.

"What do you want us to do then?" I asked, a little annoyed that we were sent on a useless task.

"We honestly don't have any jobs that require your expertise," the captain said. "When they attack today or tomorrow, you'll simply stay away from the bulk of the combat, maybe do some sniping if you want, but we can't risk losing you two in this battle."

"You're storing us?" Draco asked shocked.

"Yes, for later, High Command is coming up with a daring plan. One that could sink that nightmare of a ship." Sharma explained.

"What about the rangers?" I asked.

"Oh, that's on a need to know basis," Hernandez said.

"Well that's just great," I said as I left the tent without saluting or requesting to do so...

The Sangs arrived at dusk. Instead of waiting till the morning to execute an attack and let their troops rest, they instead attacked straight away. They went head-on with a combined-arms assault. AH-6 Attack choppers strafed the forward-most positions before tanks started bombarding the place. Then, a battalion of foot soldiers decided to slam against our line with squadrons of tanks, APCs, Helicopters, and Artillery. You know, the usual.

"So, what's your killcount?" Draco asked.

"I lost track once I hit the hundreds," I said.

"Yeah, figures," he agreed. "What about overall killcount? Any idea how high it could be?"

"Dunno, should be pretty damn high, in account to the two times I've detonated a nuke."

"We...we've detonated a nuke," Draco corrected.

"No, that first time in Eastern Europe doesn't count for you," I said. "you can share the other if you want."

Jimmy was mature enough not to get in a discussion over this. Since we had nothing left to say, we simply dedicated ourselves to observing the spectacle. The desert was black, you could barely see anything at all. We used our binocs to make out the silhouettes of friendlies and Sangvis. What really lit up the sky though, was the tracer rounds and grenade explosions. That and the flaming wrecks that were a few of the enemy vehicles. The battle was looking like an intense but short one. The Army guys down there would repel all of the attacking Sangs without much suffering and then we would shift the soldiers in the frontline. After that we'd then wait for the second, deadlier attack. That had been the plan ever since we knew that they were attacking us.

Soon enough the enemy was repulsed. We only needed to use one of our missile pods to handle two Tanks. The rest of the Little Birds were taken out with rockets or their riders had fallen prey to a well-aimed bullet. The intact Gatling guns would be grabbed and used as stationary cannons. The attack had worked well in our favor, I doubted that we had suffered a single killed. Perhaps a couple of wounded soldiers, but I knew that nothing too serious, otherwise the cries for medics would've been heard all the way over here.

"Well?" Jimmy said.

"Well what?"

"I don't know, I've got nothing to talk about," Jimmy said.

"Me neither."

We simply observed as the Missile Pods shot at the retreating troops before they disappeared over a few dunes. Seems like their camp was nearby, less than a kilometer away. That meant that we'd do some Arrowhead missile raids soon enough, odds were that Draco and me would be chosen for that.

Finally, some action. I thought excitedly, even though not a single officer had even requested us for the past hours.

"Well, I guess it's time to sleep," Draco said as he stood up. "I recommend you do the same, remember the last time?"

I only sleep about six hours each night, but it was more than enough nighttime than any self-respectable soldier would need.

I stood up as well and followed my friend to our Barracks and our folding beds.

When we woke up the next day I could clearly see all of the Sangvis dead soldiers. There were dozens of grunts, all of them dead. Two tanks had been utterly destroyed while about five AH-6's had suffered the same fate, two were salvaged and used exactly as I said they would be. Not a single Jet had been shot down, but that was not worrisome, we had been attacked at night, with no searchlights and little light to help out any night vision equipment it was rather difficult to shoot a aircraft.

I groaned as I stood up. My mohawk was still there, but there was a little bit of hair growing around it now. At least it saved me from having to put down some bunched up hair in the early morning. I put on my boots and actually tucked in my pants, that way no sand would get into the leather combat boots. I could've used my armored boots, but they were just a little bit weird to walk around. I even had to grab my surplus jacket. This particular item of clothing was gray instead of black, but it was still ODST issue. It killed me to have to wear this, but the sun was taking no prisoners. I even had to put on a cap.

"Morning Percy," Draco said as I left the Barracks, he was simply standing there watching yesterday's battlefield.

"How'd it go for us?" I asked.

"One guy was shot in the shoulder with a sniper and a couple of shrapnel wounds for everyone, nothing too serious."

"Figures," I said.

"So, around when?" he asked.

"Two hours, give or take fifteen minutes," I said. We were betting on when the enemy would attack again.

"Nah, no way, four hours," he said.

Two hours and forty-three minutes later we were under attack once again...

"Move!" I called out to the small squadron assigned to me. They were four marines in addition to Draco and myself. That is a grand total of six.

We were sprinting through the battlefield in an attempt to reach the Colonel that was leading the attack. Apparently the officer wasn't the most experienced, but still a pretty dangerous one.

"Movement right!" one of them cried. I heard a couple of shots and then we all dropped to the floor.

A stream of tracer rounds flew overhead, occupying the space where the entire squad had been moments before. I turned around so that I was face-up and shot a couple of random rounds before sighting the Sang sniper. Two bursts dented its helmet and went through her skull respectively.

"Keep moving!" I shouted.

We had been given a narrow window by the rest of Echo and B companies. They were firing all they had at the advancing enemies, while we made our way through their stretched ranks. I am still not entirely sure why we didn't get an Armadillo, would've made this thing a hell of a lot easier.

"Little Bird!" one of the marines said. We all dived sideways at the word and a line of bullet turned the sand at our feet into molten glass, damn explosive ammunition. The marine that had been carrying our two barreled Carl Gustav turned around and fired a single rocket at the craft. We circled around him while the rocket made contact with its target. A few sangvis were already realizing what was going on and firing in our direction, but we moved out of there in no time.

"Let's go!" I ordered as we started running towards our goal. The colonel was hiding behind a dune directing the assault. She had chosen to spread her force wide, that's what had allowed the tank barrage to open up a corridor for us to go through and take her out. Another one would do the same and allow us to retreat as soon as I ordered it.

"Grunt," someone called out, but the enemy had already been made a cheese grater, five assault rifle will do that...

Finally we reached the pinnacle of the dune where we would shoot the chieftain. Our rocket marine took careful aim, not even bothering to hide his presence. Just as he had sighted in on the target, a silhouette emerged from behind him. Within seconds the marine was in the desert floor, struggling to keep blood from spewing out of his neck and we were shooting a stalker in active camouflage.

The soldier kicked another marine, making her tumble downhill a few meters before she stopped herself. It then lunges at the closest marines, but it went face first to the ground as I shot at its leg. Not that it bothered the enemy, the soldier immediately stood up and tackled the marine out of the way. I fired a sustained burst at its chest and managed to kill it before it landed on top of me.

"Oh God! The horror!" I said as Draco pulled the body off me. I was covered in that same blood covered oil.

The other marine was attending to the one with a sliced neck, the two that had been kicked and tackled were making their way up here while firing at some adventurous grunts that had been sent here to kill us.

"The Colonel!" I reminded Draco, and he lunged towards the rocket launcher. He grabbed the weapon and aimed for barely a second before clicking the trigger twice. Only a single rocket flew out of its tube, since the other one was empty, but it was more than enough. The explosion landed less than a foot away from the charging Officer. Killing her and one of its bodyguards. The other one was taken out with a few shots to the face.

"Ok, let's move out," I said. "Now!" I called into my throat mic.

Even as we were clumsily making our way downhill, carrying a wounded marine with us, a rain of HE rounds cleared out any soldier that had decided to try and stop us from returning. This time we also had to provide covering fire while we returned, the enemy would not forgive us for killing a high ranking officer.

"Move!" I repeated while shooting down another Sniper.

"Scotty, behind you!" Draco called out from further ahead.

I jumped forward instinctively and a fist slammed into the wrecked AH-6 that I had been using for cover. Another stalker had been just stalking us, or me. I turned around and fired two rounds at its chest, both of which had no effect and made my gun go click. I stood up and pulled out my knife, remembering one of the lessons in close quarters combat taught to me years ago. I lunged at the monster, and making full use of my reflexes and muscles managed to end up behind it after stabbing at it twice. I slashed twice at the back of its knees. It wasn't a deadly injury, but it was enough to bring the surprised soldier to the floor, its head was now level with mine, and I promptly slashed its throat wide open.

"Wow, that was rather… impressive," Draco said, startled. It made for a funny image, a Legionnaire with an awkward look on his body while colorful projectiles rained all around him.

"Well, yes, thank you, MOVE!" I said.

We made it to the frontline without greater trouble after having killed a colonel and several other grunts, and a few snipers. That action stopped the attack in its tracks, the Sangvis retreated to regroup and attack later on.

Not all of us made it, the soldier that had been slashed in the neck died halfway to the medical tent, crying out for us to tell his wife and kids he loved them. He was the first casualty of the Legionnaires in the Juno Campaign. He would not be the last...


	10. Chapter 10

January 5, [REDACTED]

Southern Sicily, Legionnaires HQ

[Base Codename Juno, Outpost Alpha]

"Sandbags, that should be easy. Barbed wire, we can always make some. Ammunition we're getting shipped, food, we have our C-rations. Water, there's that fucking river! What I can simply not tolerate, is the absolute lack of any entertainment!" one marine complained loudly.

"Well, if you just took the time. You could watch some of the films left behind by the civilians, but apparently they're all Sicilian or outdated," an Army soldier said. "You could have a whole lot less free time if you wanted to."

"Well, maybe that's because as a marine, I'm not used to getting secondhand equipment."

I took a glance at the Army equipment placed next to the soldier and instantly knew he was right. He had a battered old M16A1 that was on top of everything looked like it had been through a couple of campaigns against the Vietcong before being handed to this soldier, it looked like it was about to fall apart. Don't get me wrong, in my opinion the M16 is a superb weapon, besides, I think it's better looking than the L85, but it performs less than satisfactory on most aspects.

The Allied Army issued its infantry soldiers with other relics. For example, the Colt 45 that I and all the other troops in the Allied Army had was the same, but this army guy had an older version of it. And let's not even get into the body armor of Army troopers. It is cumbersome, heavy, and on top of everything, is slightly less effective than the Marine Battle Dress. Really, poor guys.

The soldier and marine started getting into an Army vs. Marines argument as I walked away from them. The Outpost had been made a fortress. There were sandbag barricades forming a wall covering the perimeter of the small hill, then there were more elaborate defenses inside of the perimeter, mostly consisting of tanks aiming down the two avenues of approach and Armadillos in the intersections. It would be a nightmare to get through this place, especially when a company of Legionnaires and a company from the Army and Marines defended it.

Unfortunately, this place was boring as fuck. We hadn't had a major attack in the few days that we had been here. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing, but I'd rather fight a hundred Sangvis right now than have to wait for them endlessly. It made me feel jumpy and I wasn't the only nervous one.

I jogged through the small camp to kill time, not really because I wanted myself fit. I went through the center mass of tents, which served as headquarters for the 'Joint Strike Force', as we had been nicknamed by ourselves. We were a Joint Strike Force, mainly because members of two different Allied Army branches composed our strength. The place had been turned into a mountain of sandbags, with said objects covering all openings and forming another perimeter surrounding the officers. This is where the Last Stand would take place, if it came to that...

I made my way to the small armory, barely the size of an troop transport. It had been used as storage for weapons and ammunition, seeing that it was the only building in the camp designed to store weaponry and actually fend off assaults. A Blackhawk was positioned on the landing pad, not that it was used, it was simply there because it was an actual landing pad. We had scavanged a few Sangvis AH-6 Attack Choppers, from the attack a few days ago. Right now they were on use as courier messages and shade providers. The mongooses we had were not getting any use and likely wouldn't receive any for a long time. They'd probably serve better as barricades.

The worse part about this though, was the sun. It was significantly colder here than it had been back in Afghanistan, but 41º Celsius is still hot as fuck. Not literally. I think… Well, I don't know. Regardless, it was still very hot, and most male soldiers chose to mill around topless. Doesn't sound that sexy when it's with large military men does it? I can tell that some of the female soldiers were excited about that. They giggled and pointed at different soldiers sometimes. I managed to forget that most of them were in their early twenties or late teens. They could've been going to college and getting a nice degree, perhaps even getting married. Or they could've been dancing in strip clubs. Who knows?

I finished my running at the river. Fortunately, the water was drinkable cause I didn't want to get the flu. I drank it, it felt good as splashed water on my face. I would've jumped inside right then and there, but I didn't want to get one of my two pairs of cargos soaked. I returned back to my own little house at a slow pace. I am very glad to say that I did spot a group of Marines stealing glances at me and giggling amongst themselves. Fortunately, they were all women...

* * *

Two hours later I was dragging a marine without both of his legs to safety. Funny how things change that fast. The marine had been hit by a phosphorus grenade, the explosion it produced actually managed to burn through both his legs. His screams were almost unbearable.

"Cover me!" I yelled as I dragged the soldier over a pile of sandbags and to safety. The marine was aided by two corpsmen and tourniquets placed above his knees. The man would probably survive just fine. He'd be open for replacement limbs for free. He'd probably get a nice pair of electrical legs after he was honorably discharged. He would be able to live his life fully and normally.

An instant later a RPG rocket from a Helicopter engulfed them all, killing them instantly. It turned around for another pass but a Jeeps's M2 Browning shot it down, sending it crashing into a couple of unlucky Jaegers.

"Shoot the Officer, the Officer!"

Instants later the Officer had received about two pounds worth of lead to the face and chest, making said areas look like hamburger meat. The grunts from its squad panicked and fled. They were all shot down within moments.

From further back we were receiving a constant rain of enemy fire from three different turrets. They had been mounted on I don't know what to make them mobile. The bullets slammed all over the place, mostly missing. Mostly. I dived to the side as I fired in the general direction of the moving turrets. I was to far away to actually aim and fire accurately that quickly, but I am proud to say my shots landed around the feet of the Sang gunner. I sprinted a few meters before sliding behind an overturned tank. From that position, I popped up and managed to shoot down one of the gunners. Instants later another took its place, and the firing resumed.

"Draco, where are you with those Arrowheads?" I asked.

"Still no luck, the launching tubes were damaged badly," he said. "I need a higher vantage point to actually throw them."

"Well, climb on top of something!" I said.

It sounds absolutely crazy, but the missiles were designed to be able to thrown by a foot soldier. Similar to a javelin or spear, it would be thrown straight up, then the thrusters would be engaged. All you had to do was throw, last the target, and watch 'em fly...

"On it!" he replied.

I joined the barrage of gunfire that B and Echo companies were providing, halting the enemy advance but not eliminating it. I did my usual thing, targeting Officers and Sharpshooters. Goliath units with shields were somebody else's problem, so I dedicated myself to shooting down the sharpshooters. I jumped off the tank and switched positions to another barricade, I was beginning to attract to much attention...

"Ok, I'm ready!" Draco called out. This time I could actually hear his voice from behind me. I turned to face him and saw that he was on top of the armory, right behind me.

"Painting targets!" I said as I activated the laser targeter on my rifle. "Throw one," I said.

"Two!" I called out as I sighted in on another turret. As I said that the first missile flew straight at the first turret I had targeted, destroying it and killing the crew. The second one didn't fly high enough and slammed into the ground ten feet away from the second turret.

"Throw it higher!" I said.

Draco grunted as he complied, and the third missile hit the gunner directly, killing it and destroying the turret completely. The third missile took two attempts as well, but eventually we had destroyed all of the three turrets.

"Where is that damn Armadillo?" I asked out loud.

As soon as I said that a red tracer bullet flew right next to my head, hitting the radio components on my headset. It was awfully close to hitting my face as well.

"Fuck!"

I had to sprint all the way back to Darbinian's position. He was in command of this section of the line. I had to sprint through fifty meters of dirt to finally reach the lieutenant.

"Sir!"

"What?" he asked as he fired a steady burst at a Goliath, knocking back its shield and killing it.

"Where's the Armadillo?"

"On its way," he said as he ducked to avoid a strafing Ah-6. "Fuck you asshole!" he called out as he shot at the heli as it flew overhead.

"We need it now!" I said.

"I thought we were doing just fine," Darbinian returned angrily and, obviously, sarcastically.

"There's a fucking battalion there and we can't do shit about it!" I said.

"Fine, fuck," he relented. "Ask Vazquez to use the radio to command."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

Huh, he actually is a soldier. I thought as I crawled ten meters towards Vazquez.

"Hey, the lieutenant told me to…" Of course he was hit in the face with a piece of shrapnel. What else could've happened? "Argh! Help me!" he called out as he tried to pull the glowing red metal from his cheek.

"Calm down!" I said. I grabbed the metal and yanked, freeing the metal and earning a scream from the soldier.

I left the man there and grabbed his radio as blood spurted out of his cheek wound.

"Command! This is Captain Cameron, we need the Armadillo right fucking now!" I said.

"It's on its fucking way Captain, and watch your fucking tone!" came the answer from none other than Chloe Delacroix, Draco's new fling...

"Just tell the fucking thing to hurry up!" I yelled into the radio, getting into the discussion. "Or we'll die."

"Done," she said.

As soon as she said that I dropped the radio from and let it dangle from the guy's backpack. I grabbed him from the back of his vest and started pulling him back, he was firing from his SMG while I did so.

"Medic!" I called out. A corpsman sprinted towards me and grabbed the bleeding Vazquez from the same place. I took a knee and killed a Jaeger that was shooting in out direction. Lines of red bullets appeared ten meters away and moved towards me only to stop an inch away from my boot. I took the moment to eliminate the sharpshooters with three shots to the head respectively.

"Jimmy!" I called into my throat mic, at least that still worked. It allowed me and Draco to keep in contact, since we were in the same squad...

"What?!" He replied, gunshots ringing out over his voice.

"Make those damn Jaegers keep their heads down!" I ordered.

"I'm fucking trying!" he said as I heard a steady burst from his M60. Normally, we would've been more quiet and professional when on a mission, but this wasn't actually a mission. We were simply fighting to push back a Sangvis advance. This was actually the weakest point of the their attack, but we only had two platoons to defend it. The rest of the troops were defending the western side of Outpost Alpha from a stronger advance.

"Chopper!" someone yelled.

I turned to see the attack helicopter come flying over a hill. It started shooting all over the place, hitting one soldier in the arm, blowing it clean off. Instants later the low flying heli was propelled upwards by a grenade explosion and then blown up with a rocket.

I started moving towards it to confirm the kill and use it as cover when a large mass moving at 30mph slammed into the wreck, tearing it apart. The armadillo slowed down a little bit to allow for better accuracy. Its twin autocannons started roaring as it spewed explosive rounds at the troops. The IFV stayed there, shooting any vehicles it could spot with its autocannon and mowing all infantry down with the robotic machinegun. I ran towards it.

"Hey, open up!" I said as I banged on the hull.

"What?" asked a voice through a thin slit.

"There are some tanks over that rise, you'd better keep moving," I told the pair of eyes.

"Ok, roger that," he said. A few moments later the armadillo rumbled forward and two high explosive blasts landed a few meters away from the vehicle, making my neck feel warm. I moved with the IFV and used it as cover, occasionally popping out to shoot at a couple of enemies.

"Tank!" someone from behind yelled. I banged on the hull.

"I see it," someone answered without bothering to show his face.

I turned just in time to see a tank appear from a small rise, its sights on the Armadillo. The autocannon peppered the tank with fire as it received fire from the tank's gunner. Suddenly the tank was sent veering of to the side and then stopped. Now with broken tracks, a couple of rockets made it blow up.

Instants later the armadillo started rumbling forward, actually, it was retreating towards our line. On of its sides was completely undamaged while the other one was scorched, cracked, riddled with bullet holes, and slightly melted from phosphorus grenades.

"What about the other Tank?" I called out to it as it passed. I got no answer.

"Scotty, need some help over here," Draco said. He was behind me and climbed a ladder to the roof of the armory as soon as he said that.

I painted a couple of minor targets such as a Officer and a cluster of soldiers before a few Arrowheads slammed into them. I repeated the routine a couple of times before we were ordered to cease fire.

"They're falling back!" some marine said, almost like he didn't believe it.

"Finally," Draco groaned as he sat on a surprisingly undamaged chair. "Those guys in the tank were fucking pussys."

"IFV, it's not a tank," I informed him. "And that's rude."

"I know," he said as he let his head rest on one of his hands.

I left the house and headed towards the Lieutenant, he was meeting with a staff sergeant and asking him for a sitrep on he battle.

"Three KIAs and three WIA, two of them serious," the sergeant said.

"Could've been worse," Darbinian returned. "What the fuck do you want?" he snapped as he saw me.

"Easy there Kriks," I said. "Just wanted to see how it went." I immediately turned around and left, leaving the bitchy asshole to chat with his staff sergeant. I was surprised that he had been given command of this section of the defense, but he had done a decent job at it, so I wouldn't berate him for that.

Our three KIAs were the guy that had had both his legs blown off and the two corpsmen. Our WIAs were the guy with shrapnel in his left eye socket and the other one was the one that had gotten his arm blown away by the chopper. The one with the metal in his cheek would be operated on and remain here as a combatant. His cheek would be patched up, stitched, and healed by tomorrow night. The other soldier would likely be evacuated to a hospital in the nearby headquarters where there were larger regiments. Maybe he'd even get a replacement arm.

I headed back towards Command, the other attack had been repulsed successfully with help of one tank, three Jeeps, two Apaches, and seven goddamn Armadillos. Assholes.

I looked up to see a Apache spewing smoke from one of its rotors. The two door gunners' faces were covered in soot and smoke. It landed noisily right outside of the landing zone. That would need some serious repairs pretty soon. The two gunners hopped of the craft and coughed half their lungs out while the pilot stopped its rotors and managed to make the flow of smoke slow down a little bit.

I heard a few mortar shots and saw a Blackhawk fly by towards the place of the other attack, probably on its way to pick wounded soldiers.

"Captain, what in the fuck are you doing here?" asked Captain Sharma.

"We pushed them back," I said. "And it's not my shift for watchout."

"It doesn't work like that Captain, you just fucking pushed back an enemy attack five minutes ago, you have to remain in the frontline for at least an hour before gradually phasing back to regular shifts.

"But the surveillance drones show that…" I started.

"I don't give a fuck, go back there and be helpful!" she ordered.

"Ma'am!" I said as I saluted and did a neat about turn. I headed back to the place where we had been attacked and did an exemplary job of replacing sandbags that had been damaged with intact ones. I didn't have to follow her orders, since we held the same rank, but I wasn't in the mood for a petty dispute...

* * *

AN : Thanks so much for your views and reviews! I planned on ten chapters, but it seems the battle continues...What will happen to our two troopers and Kate?! Stay tuned for the possibly 5000+ word ending to the prolouge...

Don't worry though! After a small break to plan ahead the story,(I have twelve chapters so far!) the Main Story will be realeased!

"See you on the Frontline, trooper!"


	11. Chapter 11

**January 5, [REDACTED]**

 **Southern Sicily, Outpost Alpha**

* * *

 _It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son..._

 _It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no..._

The lyrics of that ultra _old-fashioned_ song were then made difficult to hear by the Blackhawk's rotors. It was pretty fitting for the situation we were in. The supercarrier was still damaged, although scouts had reported that some robotic drones were working on repairing the engines. The entirety of the forces on the supercarrier were now waging a conventional war against the Allied forces on Juno. We had gotten some reinforcements from the other regions in the area now that the evacuation was complete. We were fine on food and ammunition, but we were still outnumbered at least five to one.

 _Some folks are born with silver spoon in hand..._

 _Lord, don't they help themselves oh..._

I watched the barren, featureless sand as the two-helicopter patrol made their way through the air. So far we hadn't spotted anything of interest, same as the past five times. Most of our drones didn't have the range to fly out this far, but Apaches were to valuable to risk, so Blackhawks it was.

The gunner in the other heli waved his hands at me. He was one of the Rangers, although I didn't know his name. He made a motion for me to put my helmet on, which I promptly did.

"Anything?" he asked through the radio.

"Don't see anything that you don't," I replied.

"Same ol' same ol'" he said.

I shrugged and he did the same. This time I didn't take off my helmet as I scanned the wasteland that was the ground under us. There were some smoke plumes in the distance, probably bombing raids. I could also spot what looked like a small mountain in the distance, only that it wasn't a mountain, it was the Sangvis supercarrier. Unable to move, and we still couldn't take it out. Right now command's plan was to eliminate all ground forces before launching a raid that would weaken the supercarrier's hull. Then the Navy would do their equivalent of a charge and bombard the gargantuan craft with literally everything they had.

So far, it was not going well...

"Patrol-two, what do you see?" asked the pilot's voice in the general channel. "About five clicks south, southeast," he indicated.

"Looks like nothing to me Patrol-one," came the reply.

"When are we scheduled to go back?" asked Patrol-one.

"Half an hour," replied the other pilot.

"Let's go check it out," Patrol-one indicated.

"Roger that," said Two.

Both UH-60 Blackhawks veered sharply to the right to get on course. I held on to the gun I was manning to avoid falling out of the craft. Draco was with me, as usual. We were the only two available Legionnaires at Outpost Alpha, our unit was finishing their combat training at HQ. He was manning the other .50 cal on the Helicopter, and hadn't said a word since we had hopped on the Heli. He seemed a little bit tired, but I didn't ask why. Didn't really care either.

"You see that?" he asked. Patrol-one, that is.

"What is it?"

That had woken up my interest, I glanced in the general direction of where they had pointed at and suddenly I saw it. It was like an Stalker in active camouflage only that the size of the flickering air was rather larger than an elite. Some thirty meters tall perhaps. I couldn't make out a discernible shape.

"Wanna take a shot at it Patrol-two?"

"What's the harm eh?"

Both of the Blackhawk's missiles fired in unison at the flickering air. The rockets bounced off it and produced some sparkling. Instants later we were receiving fire from threats that seemed to originate out of nowhere. Draco and I shifted our M2s to fire at the invisible target. After a few moments of that something appeared out of nowhere.

The object in question was one of the Sangvis active camouflage or stealth pylons. It had been hiding itself and a few squads of Goliaths and Jaegers. Oh, and also a Shilka. The Anti Air combat platform turned to face us. It was a wonder that we hadn't been shot at yet.

"Veer to the left!" I yelled as the Shilka's main gun opened up.

Both Helicopters veered violently in opposite directions, a stream of heated tracers filled the air where the other UH60 had just been and made my eyes see colorful sparking lights. Fire from small arms was hitting the underside of the UH60 and passing dangerously close to me. I shifted my aim towards the leaders of the squads, managing to take out two before the Blackhawks flew out of range.

"Patrol-one, did you tag it?"

"Affirmative Patrol-two," he said. "We got him."

The flight back to base was uneventful, other than a couple of 'fucking nosy pilots' from all of the gunners, nothing of interest happened, and we landed in the Outpost and the pilots were taken away for debriefing.

"Hey Draco," I said as my friend headed in the opposite direction.

"What?"

"You never finished telling me whatever was that was so bad about having sex with Delacroix."

"Oh right," he noted, looking a little uncomfortable, even behind all that combat armor. "Well, where was I?" he said, this time speaking through the radio between his and my helmet. "The Christmas dinner was almost over, and she was getting all touchy-feely with me," he started. "Then she asked me if I wanted to go over to her room, she's a female XO, so she gets her own room."

"XO as in hugs and kisses?" I teased.

"Yes, as in hugs and kisses," he said. "Anyways, we were sitting down on the bed, making out, I was showing her some of my magic when she decided to go to washroom…"

"Washroom?" I asked.

"Well, bathroom, if you prefer, or water closet."

"Ok, go on," I said.

"And when she came out…"

That moment my helmet's radio started acting up. It still had some static every now and them because it had been repaired instead of new when ARTEMIS had issued it to me. I took it off. I hated getting already used equipment...

"Sorry man, shit is malfunctioning again," I said as I banged the helmet a few times.

"I don't think that'll work," he observed.

"Well, it worked last time I hit it." I told him.

He sighed and took off his own helmet, before taking a breath to speak. Then my whole world went completely black.  
"Guess who is it?" asked a familiar voice.

"Jesus Christ! Kate, I told you not to scare me like that!" I complained loudly. "I was about to elbow you in the face or something," I joked.

"Sure you were," she said as she uncovered my eyes, allowing me to see a very confused Draco.

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, over there," she said while pointing nowhere in particular. She then gave us one long look, her expression changing slightly. "What were you two guys talking about?" she asked slowly.

"Porn," we both replied simultaneously. It wasn't even planned.

"Suuure," she said, obviously not believing us. "Anyways, I'll see you later Draco. Scotty, come on."

"Duty calls," I said while shrugging at my friend, who seemed to be breathing hard.

Kate walked me all the way to her Chinook, she was a flight medic, while talking about something or other and asking me about my patrol. She seemed a little bit worried when I told her about the Shilka.

"What was Draco so worried about?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing, he was about to tell me what was so bad about getting it on with Chloe," I said.

"Lieutenant Delacroix?" she asked.

"The same."

"So…" she questioned.

"So?" I said.

"So what happened?"

"Oh, you interrupted us," I explained.

"Why didn't he go on?" she asked.

"Well, you're a girl," I told her.

"Well how very observant of you," she said.

"Thanks," I replied, pretending to be proud. She pushed me playfully.

"Why doesn't he want to tell me?" she asked me.

"I told you already," I said. "It's obviously something he doesn't want to share."

"Oh well, nothing I can do about it."  
Having said that she pulled me inside of her Helicopter and closed the bay doors. You can guess what happened next...

* * *

 **[The next day...]**

The outpost was quiet in the early morning, a few of the captured AH-6 choppers doing routine patrols. I had woken up in the cargo bay of a Chinook, thanks to a certain feisty ginger. My weapons and armor I left piled on a seat, I grabbed my Colt 45 and a Boot Knife, just for safety reasons. I had on a grey undershirt and my BDU trousers, just to complete the look, I grabbed my blue beret and put that on as well...

Most of the people here would still be asleep for a few hours, including Kate, so I decided to take a stroll around. I left the area with the Helicopters and made my way down the dirt road towards Command. I pulled out a cigarette, smoking it as I walked around the path. A M1 Abrams tank was sitting on the side of the road, a gunner tinkering with his M2 Browning. He was pulling at the charging handle but it wouldn't budge.

"Need some help?" I asked the teen.

"Yeah," he grunted, still trying to pull the handle.

I hopped on the tank, and climbed on top of the turrent. The gunner stopped his efforts when I held up my hand, and pointed to the underside of the weapon.

"It stopped firing after a few belts of ammo, didn't it?"

"Yeah," the tanker said while thinking, "We fired 2,000 rounds from it, during the last enemy assault."

"Its a common problem," I said while using my hand to feel around for the culprit, "Keep it oiled up and clean the firing mechanic...aha! Got ya!"

The bullets come out the bottom of the gun for certain variations of the gun, this was one of those models. I grabbed my knife from my boot, using the tip of the blade to pry free the brass casing. I showed it to the teen, and informed him on how to unjam the gun in case the same thing happened to him again.

"Thanks!" He said with a grin.

"Don't mention it," I told him, "We gotta watch each other's back. Otherwise we might be able to see the next sunset..."

"Amen to that, brother."

We shook hands again, then I set off again on my walk to Command. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the Mess Tent, saluting a few Rangers who were having a early breakfast. They saluted first, of course, but it would be rude to not salute back. A few others were waking up, now that sun would be coming up soon, and with it comes the heat. It was unusually warm for a January, but I'm not one to complain, Afghanistan was hotter.

I focused on my surroundings. There was enough light around for me to see clearly, and a young corporal approached me.

"Captain Cameron?" she asked nervously.

"The one and only," I grunted. Let's make her sweat a little, I thought.

"You are to come with me," she said.

"Is that so?" I asked with a menacing tone.

She visibly gulped before going on. "Yes, Captain Sharma's orders."

"Very well then, lead the way," I replied, suddenly switching to an overly cheering tone.

The corporal looked confused for a moment before deciding that she didn't want to piss off a Legionnaire. My unit hadn't seen combat, since myself and Draco were the only combat qualified Legionnaires right now, but rumors spread quick in the Military. Nine months is a long time for information to travel...

"Sure thing, sir, this way, sir," she said, still nervously.

I grunted in agreement and followed her through the camp. Most people here were in fighting order, but I spotted a few Rangers with bandages on their arms, legs, and sometimes even around their heads. This offensive had not been a nice thing. After a stroll, we arrived at the command tent.

"We're here," the corporal said.

I glared at her.

"Sir," she added nervously. I waited for her to turn and scurry away before breaking in a wide grin. I turned to enter the command tent to find Sharma's face less than an inch away from mine. It would've been a romantic position in other situations, but this time it was slightly threatening.

"Please don't intimidate my soldiers Captain," she said. "That girl over there has a bright future, so don't make her feel like shit."

"Yes ma'am, I'll take that into account in future encounters with any of your soldiers," I replied, perhaps a little bit too sarcastically.

"Watch your tone soldier," she said. The term soldier is considered an insult in the Marine Corps. It meant that you were regular Army, and not a highly trained soldier.

"I'm a Legionnaire… ma'am," I said, this time I made my voice sound as dangerous as possible and let my eyes show a little anger. I also stood taller. Captain Sharma was almost a foot shorter than I was, so she appropriately looked nervous and backed off a little. Those are the little things that make me glad that I went through hell and back to become the leader of my new unit.

"Regardless," she said. "Come inside," she ordered, trying to save some face.

I entered the tent to find a large holodesk and a display of what I assumed to be the area around us. The large supercarrier in the middle of the map was a pretty nice giveaway.

"This is the situation," an unfamiliar voice said. I looked up to see a middle-aged man dressed in a Colonel's uniform, probably the officer assigned to lead the battalion or regiment that the Outpost's troops had been absorbed into.

"We currently have the enemy outnumbered in terms of infantry and air support, but they have a large amount of vehicular assets here, and here," he said as he pointed at objects in the holo-map. "There are definitely more enemy troops and materiel hidden around the area, probably in this ridges or in those cave systems. For a decisive attack to be made, we need to eliminate a large number of these vehicular assets, facilitating the job for out tank corps to break through the infantry lines. The best way to do it would be a small infiltration team laser painting the area for missile strikes," he explained. "Sharma, is your man back?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," she replied as she took one step forward. "He's right here."

"Colonel," I said as I saluted.

"At ease Captain," he said.

I complied gladly, I was still a little tense from the long night in the Chinook. And the lack of sleep.

"Well, you and Hernandez's Rangers, what's left of them, will be the ones to partake in this mission, it is simple enough. Get there without getting caught, paint the targets, get back to the extraction point, and leave."

"Straightforward enough, sir."

"Nezarian, what's your assessment?" the Colonel asked.

"The mission should be a success, Captain Cameron is more than capable enough for this," he replied.

"Why thank you lieutenant," I said, perhaps a little bit too mockingly.

"Fuck off asshole," he said angrily. He seemed to be on edge.

"Easy there, we're all on the same team here," the colonel said.

Neither Nezarian nor me said anything for a few moments until I was dismissed. I saluted and left after asking Captain Sharma where my unit was...

"Still at Headquarters. They have finished their qualifications and you can expect them to be here after this mission," she explained.

The statement had me confused for a few moments before I realized that it meant I wouldn't be till my troops were fighting alongside Draco and myself. I thanked the captain and saluted once more before leaving. It was almost completely light now, the night had quickly gone away now that the sun was over the horizon.

I walked through the now bustling camp and finally reached my barracks. I sighed in relief at finally being able to rest after the long night of fun and I opened the door.

Inside, I was something that frightened me more than anything I had ever seen before in my entire life.

Chloe Delacroix was there, she was wearing nothing but thigh-high leather boots and a smile. I dropped my coffee and fumbled for words before she covered herself and squealed.

"What the…?" was all I could say before I heard Jimmy.

"I'm here," he said, his voice coming from behind. "Oh…" he said as he blushed visibly. "Welcome back Percy."

"Where did she even get those boots?" I asked, still a bit dumbstruck.

"Well, yeah, funny story," Jimmy said while scratching the back of his neck. "I'll tell you later, so take a walk, will ya?"

Great, kicked out of my own barracks.

I left my coffee on the floor and walked around the camp for a while. After circling it two times, I realized that I had only spent ten minutes walking around. I sighed and climbed up a small hill to look at the plains beyond.

From my vantage point I could clearly see the entirety of the supercarrier on the water. It stretched from side to side of my eyes. It looked almost invulnerable sitting there. It was a beached ship, a beached ship that was desperately waiting for the high tide to escape. Only that this ship had cannons and simply resting on the sand.

I could see little lights traveling from the coast towards the gargantuan cargo bay of the ship and back. On the coastline there were numerous colorful lights. The Sangvis army. They were ready to hold against us with tooth and nail. They were camped in between some small hills, sometimes those hills didn't permit me to see some sections of their massive encampment.

I saw some dim lights a lot closer to our line. Those were certainly enemy recon patrols. Some of those were destined to become small-scale raids. I sighed with reluctance and simply stared at the pretty lights until they hypnotized me into sleep.

I woke up to a few voices. I couldn't quite understand what they were saying. I ignored them and wondered why people would be talking so loudly right outside my barracks. I moved slightly and then realized how uncomfortable I was. Then I realized that I had fallen asleep on the hill.

"What time is it?" I asked suddenly. There was a group of three young-looking Rangers chatting next to me. Probably replacements.

"Three hours after sunrise," one of them said.

"Aw fuck," I murmured. "Couldn't any of you wake me up?" I asked, annoyed.

"Well…"

I could see that my attire had prevented them from doing so.

"For fuck's sake. I may be a Legionnaire, but I won't eat your face or anything." I said as I hopped back up. I walked past the marines, bumping my shoulder hardly into one of them. He winced, but didn't say anything.

I walked all the way back to my room and walked in. The first thing I did was punch Draco in the gut.

"What the hell man?!" He said, while grabbing his stomach.

"That's for making me nap outside!"

"I told you to take a walk, not to stay outside!" he complained while gasping for air.

"Well fuck you, I wasn't about to return and take another look at your girl. Don't you know anything about the man code? It's like older than dirt," I said.

"Ok, fair point. I'm sorry."

"Damn right you are," I said.

Before any of us could say anything else the same shy looking corporal that had led me from the mess tent towards the command tent slid her head through the doors.

"Ahem," she cleared her throat.

"What?" we both replied.

The female corporal visibly recoiled a little bit before she got the courage to talk.

"You're needed at command," she said almost shyly.

"Be right there," I said.

The corporal scurried away as fast as humanly possible.

"Well, she almost shat her pants," Draco pointed out.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she actually did," I said. "By the way, I want a bottle of that Irish Whiskey you have," I said.

"Fine, but you'll get the three-quarters full one."

"Fair enough," I said after some thinking. And just like that we were back to normal, except for the pain in my neck that came from sleeping awkwardly, but I could forget that, mostly in account to the tightness in my lower back.

We walked back to the command post, it looked exactly the same as yesterday except that this time Darbinian was in here as well. He looked grimmer than usual for him, and that's saying a lot. Despite his cheery personality, the man always had a haunted look to him, now there was no cheery personality, so he looked exactly what he was. A lieutenant that had lost most of his platoon at the cost of completing the mission. That would haunt him for the rest of his life...

"Well, now that we're all here, we can start," the colonel said. He hit a button on the holodesk and the same display that was in there yesterday popped up again. It showed the same small hills and ridges all around the area, the supercarrier was still in the middle of the map, colored in a bright red.

"As you can see, there are large concentrations of enemy grunts, wtanks, choppers, and specters here, and here…"

He went on for what seemed like hours, explaining the tactical and strategic advantages and disadvantages that those vehicles brought to our predicament. He pointed out several other Allied units that were slowly pressing the Sangvis line, closing in on the supercarrier. There were already a couple of cruisers sailing right outside of the range of the supercarrier, preparing a strike in case the thing decided to go ahead and open fire trying kill everyone of us. There were already numerous launchers aimed at the ship, all equipped with missiles ranging from a few Arrowheads to a HAVOK nuclear warhead. Our entire arsenal was aimed at that ship.

The colonel relished in explaining every last detail about the offensive for about fifteen minutes before he actually went to the part that interested me.

"Well, seven strike teams will be sent here, here, here, here, here, and here, that last location will need two strike teams. The operators will paint the targets with lasers and a missile barrage will eliminate or neutralize most of the vehicles the Sangs have."

He took a moment to take a deep breath.

"Nezarian will take four of his Rangers to this point," he said and pointed. "And Captain Cameron will go here with Sergeant Wilkins, our two Legionnaires ."

The colonel had pointed at two middle-sized red blots, they were behind relatively steep hills, which made our mission slightly easier. Nezarian looked at the area around our targets for a long time before nodding quietly.

"Well the operation is a go for tonight. Be in the landing pad by nine, the sun should have set by then. Dismissed."

We all saluted and left the Colonel with his officers alone. I caught up with Nezarian.

"Lieutenant," I said.

"Captain, good to see you're alive and kicking."

"Thanks lieutenant, I can say the same for you. Just wondering, what happened to your unit?"

"Well, the Sangs fell back a little bit, allowing for Draco, the rest of us, and me, what was left of us, anyways…" his eyes drifted away. "Well, Blackhawks destroyed the advancing forces, but the tanks and the rest of the Sang troops attacked immediately. A few Helicopters were destroyed and for a couple of minutes it looked like we would be overrun. Then, like another gift from god, artillery hit the enemy troops. A shell hit one of the tank units by pure luck. With the tanks out of the equation, the final push was relatively easy, the Armadillos and artillery did most of the work, and then some reinforcement s arrived. It was not until then that we got to rest."

"How did your platoon do?" I asked. I had to know.

"Well, there's only eight of us left."

"Damn," I said sadly.

"I know," he said as he looked into the ground. "It doesn't matter, we'll make those bastards pay for it a thousandfold tonight."

"Damn straight," I said.

* * *

By nine o'clock in the morning, I was already fully armed and armored, my L85a2 was cleaned up and oiled, a fresh magazine was slapped into its port and the batteries on the laser sights and flashlight were charged. My belly was covered in armor and ammunition pouches full to the brim. The two USMC-issue knives that I had were new ones, both looked shiny and deadly as I had put them inside their sheaths. My other knife was still strapped to its place by my boot, sharp as ever and ready for blood.

There were flashbangs and frags hanging from my sides. It was more than I would probably need, but these things tended to go wrong. Hell, everything in this war was going wrong.

I reached the landing pad and was dismayed to see four Little Birds waiting for us. Yes, Little Birds, not Blackhawks. I slumped my shoulders a little in disappointment and walked towards the group already there.

"Staff Sergeant" Nezarian greeted me.

"Lieutenant," I acknowledged.

"I believe this is yours," he said.

Yevgeny handed me my pistol. It had fallen out of my chest holster during the last battle, I spent hours looking for that gun. It looked the same as always. Battered, scratched, damaged, and the paint wearing away. The extended barrel/suppressor was still there and the gun looked like it had just been cleaned.

"Thank you, lieutenant," I said as I replaced the other Colt 45 pistol I had gotten from the armory with my own. I placed the other gun below my larger knife and above my butt pack, securing it with straps.

"Well, of we go," a Little Bird pilot said.

I reluctantly hopped on the dangerously thin platform on the side, it wasn't even comfortable, my ass was resting on the flat piece of metal while my legs hung out. Draco did the same and sat down on the opposite side.

The craft ignited its rotors and immediately lurched upwards. I grabbed to the small platform as I saw the dark shapes of the tents in the Outpost fly by.

The Little Bird flew rather fast for a craft that possessed absolutely no armaments. It dropped us about a mile away from our target, in between two clusters of enemy troops. As soon as the pilot had descended to a hovering altitude of two meters we hopped off, the helicopter was already leaving at top speed when I looked up after my landing.

I glanced at Jimmy. He was dusting himself off. He had replaced his M60 with an MP5 SMG, he had placed a silencer on it in case we needed to take down any sentries. I had done the same thing for my L85, outfitting it with a suppressor.

He nodded at me and we quietly made our way forward. We would maintain radio silence and communicate only verbally through our helmet's speakers. And only if it was necessary. We were behind enemy lines, with absolutely no support other than the ammunition and weaponry that we had carried here with us. It seemed terribly little in the face of an enemy army. Lucky that we wouldn't need them.

We started a slow trot as we made our way forward. Eventually we started walking and finally we crouched into combat stances while advancing slowly. Our goggles didn't detect any enemy troops nearby. The positions of sentry towers and vehicles had been uploaded into our helmets, so we knew which places we should avoid.

"Shh," I said, actually putting a finger to my face instead of doing the usual silence hand sign.

There was a rhythmical noise. Completely unnatural in the night. Draco and I both went prone behind a small rocky outcropping and soon enough we spotted the source of the noise. It was nothing else than a Sniper. She was carrying a carbine on her back. The weapon was almost as tall as the soldier, but I knew that didn't stop her from being deadly. Jimmy glanced at me and gave me a nod, that was all I needed.

My knife was already in my hand as the soldier passed below us. I dropped behind her with almost absolutely no noise. Despite that, a 125 pound man with the addition of full battle armor landing on a rocky surface is bound to make a noise. Even if that noise is nothing more than a very dull thump.

The Sniper turned around while yelling, but the sound never exited its throat, as I had already launched my hand forward in an attack. The tip of the knife hit the underside of the sniper's jaw, it went deep into the flesh and went through the thin part of the skull with relative ease. Death was instantaneous, more than this worthless piece of shit deserved.

I signaled for Draco to hop down and we both resumed our infiltration after hiding the body and covering the little spilled blood with some dirt. The carbine was left without any ammunition and I twisted my knife inside its ejection port to mess up the internal mechanisms. Just in case.

Finally, after three more Sniper patrols and some skull-bashing and knife wielding, we made it to the summit of the hill completely intact. Unfortunately, the summit of the hill was a decent vantage point, which meant that the Sangs had obviously placed a well-sized force in there. From here I saw mostly normal foot soldiers, although I spotted a few Stalkers in the encampment as well.

That meant trouble, we had to paint the large parking lot of enemy choppers, tanks and troopss. Normally, this would've been done with an artillery bombardment, but we didn't quite have that luxury right now, fortunately, we had a couple of satellites that could relay the laser signature to the computers on the missiles. We would need some time to paint the area completely, sort of like circling the place with my laser sight, and we couldn't exactly do it if there was a heavy enemy presence on our asses.

We couldn't exactly simply avoid them either, as soon as the missiles fell, the entire camp would wake up and we'd be found. Fortunately for us, the complement of this hill summit was of about twenty enemy troops. After some recon we found out that only two of them were Stalkers. Time for some serious infiltration shit.

Draco and I both split up, he had kept his M60 slung over his back and pulled out his silenced MP5 . I had simply unbuttoned the safety strap of my thigh holster for easier access to my now silenced Colt 45. I rounded the camp until I came across a lone Jaeger patrolling. Well, to call it patrolling would've been an insult to every patrolman in the history of ever, the Jaeger was sitting down on the floor, staring towards her own camp. I almost decapitated the enemy as I slid my knife across her neck.

I moved on while circling the camp, I killed two more Jaegers before I finally spotted Draco. He was about forty yards away from me.

"Three," he signaled.

"Three," I signaled back.

My squadmate pointed towards the lone guard tower that this small outpost sported. I aimed at it with my rifle and found out that there was only a single soldier on it. Unfortunately, it was a Stalker, with full battle-armor at that. We absolutely had to eliminate the threat before we went deeper into the camp. This third Stalker could easily be taken out from here, but not with any technique that would guarantee total stealth.

I decided to go for it.

"Mine," I signaled.

I aimed at the enemy and zoomed in on the face of the Stalker. The entire scope was now showing only the Sang's face, well as much as a face as I could see under all that Active Camo. I zoomed in and made sure my reticule was aimed exactly at the iris of my prey. I followed its eyes as it's body made small, natural movements. Finally, after a few seconds of steadying myself, I took a deep breath and fired. The 5.56mm thick slug went right in between the folded material of the Stalker's helmet. That round flew through the air and ended its trajectory in the enemy's left eye. Just to the right of the point where the sight had been centered. The round went easily through the camo's redish eye before it broke through all the nerves, skin, and tissue,. The bullet finally stopped after being forced back into the Sang's skull after hitting the inside of the Stalker's helmet. It finally came to rest after bouncing a couple of times inside the skull.

Draco simply gave me a double thumbs up before we resumed our task of eliminating every last Sangvis soldier in the outpost. My gunshot had made enough noise to get me nervous, but not enough to actually alert any alien. Jimmy and I moved five meters apart, killing any alien that was in front of us or even within range. Finally, we both reached the barracks. He nodded to me, I nodded back and we both went inside separate buildings.

I was surprised at the position the Sangs slept in, it was surprisingly human. I pulled out my pistol and put it against the temple of a sleeping Jaeger. I fired the gun. The sound of its brains turning into mush was louder than the gunshot. After six more rounds, all the enemies were dead.

You could've used the knife you idiot! I thought as I facepalmed.

I sighed and moved outside. Jimmy gave me the clear sign. We inspected the camp for another couple of minutes before we finally decided it was safe enough to target our… well, target.

I moved towards the end of the camp that faced the large numbers of Sangvis vehicles. I couldn't help but compare the sight to that of a car dealership. The vehicles were all closely packed together and most of them were parked. Sure, there were a few patrolling tanks, but that was about it.

I activated my laser targeter and went to work.

A few minutes later the camp had been circled completely by my laser. A diagram in my goggles showed a rough aerial view of the line I had painted with my laser. Usually I would've needed to keep my laser pointed at the target, but the satellites in orbit had acquired the coordinates and saved them in their hard drives. Those would then direct the missiles launched to land at every single place inside of the area I had circled off.

Finally, after a few minutes of waiting, the time for the missile to launch came.

I actually saw them strike before I could hear the noise their powerful engines made. The 'parking lot' in front of me lit up with flames that turned night to day for a full minute. Only then did I hear the surprisingly loud whoosh that the missiles had made, traveling a few times faster than the speed of sound. Moments later I heard the explosions and felt the dampened shockwaves.

"Pretty," Jimmy grunted.

Draco and I were sitting on the guard tower of the Sangvis camp. We were using the corpse of the Stalker as a pillow and leaning back on it as we watched the gory spectacle. My lips twitched in a macabre smile around my cigarette as I saw the first explosions. When the bulk of the missiles had hit, that smile had changed to an almost psychopathic grin. The missiles fell for what seemed like hours, flashes of orange followed by gigantic fireballs dotted by smaller explosions.

It was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire life.

"Well, of we go laddie," Draco said in a faux British accent. I am pretty sure he did a terrible job at it. The Dude is Irish, not a Brit...

We both jumped off the platform and rolled as we hit the ground. I thought about taking a souvenir of sorts, but decided against it. We started our walk back to our extraction zone, the fire of the burning camp lighting the way.

"So, why was your first time with Delacroix so bad?" I asked halfway through.

"Well, you saw those leather boots," he half-asked.

"Yeah," I said, smiling a little at the memory.

"Well, that wasn't the whole outfit," he started.

"You know what, I'm not entirely sure I want to know anymore," I said.

"Fine by me," Draco said as he shrugged.

By the time we reached our extraction point, we were both tired of jogging and the Little Bird pilot was yelling at us. We hopped on the passenger platforms and the small aircraft flew away, back towards our outpost, and my unit.

I could see that our forces were already mobilizing for that final push. I just hoped that it would be more final for the enemy than for us...

* * *

After we arrived at the Outpost, I went to the Command tent to debrief the Colonel. I was informed that my unit would be arriving in a matter of minutes, and also when the main assault to push the enemy back into the sea was scheduled to begin, less then five hours after my men arrived. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

I enlisted the help of Jimmy and Sheppard, who had come to be the de facto pilot for the Legionnaires. We spent a little over five minutes moving crates of armor, weapons, and ammo to the landing area, with the help of a Jeep and trailer. There was also a special crate I had shipped from ARTEMIS Headquarters.

We had everything set up as the 3 Chinooks began to appear over the Outpost. They landed right in front of Draco and myself, both of us still standing in our armor, the blood from our recent mission still splattered on our chests and helmets. Sheppard was now dressed in standard Legionnaire Black fatigues and a Blue Beret on his head, he was sitting in the Jeep, smoking a pipe.

They came pouring out the Helicopters, each soldier wearing a blue beret and black fatigues, the standard issue knife and handgun residing in their respective holsters. I had Promoted Joshua Townsend to Lance Corporal and managed to get a Transfer for Jim Nakayama, as well as a promotion. They both preformed perfectly as Platoon leaders. They had the 3 groups of 50 soldiers stand at attention in seconds, in formation, with ten rows of 15 soldiers to a row.

"Attention! Commander on deck!" Nakayama shouted. All 150 Legionnaires saluted immediately and without any hesitation whatsoever.  
"At ease!" I ordered, saluting back. I could already see a few of them taking glances at the blood stains on my armor.

"Welcome to Outpost Alpha," I began my speech with a voice full of pride, "Today will be one of the greatest moments of your life. The enemy has lost thousands of troops, and hundreds of tanks and other vehicles. In a few hours, we shall embark on a mission to destroy that enemy ship off the coast."

Draco reached into his armor chest pocket and pulled out a string with Sangvis dogtags tied onto it, some of them from our recent mission. He tossed the fairly good sized metal ball onto the dirt, directly in front of the recruits. A few of them visibly gulped. I continued my words after a small nod in his direction.

"I have with me your new gear, which is the armor you see me and Sargeant Draco wearing. It consists of a undersuit, that can stop a knife and anything up to a 9mm bullet, and you all have your balaclavas and goggles from the training at HQ. This..."

I grabbed and held up a chest piece, coincidentally it was my old one.

"This is the standard chest piece of the Legionnaires, on your shoulder plates rest the symbol of ARTEMIS, while on your chest piece you will bear the emblem of the Legion. Trust me when I say this, you will earn the Eagle on this armor. Your weapons are behind me, those of you who have passed sniper school, please report to my XO, Sargeant Draco. Everyone else step up and grab a set of armor, a rifle will be issued to you by our pilot, Lt. Sheppard."

Each soldier did as was asked, receiving a full set of armor from me and a L85a2 or M1014 Benelli from Sheppard. Draco handed out approximately thirty-five Barrett M82 sniper rifles. Once everyone was issued their gear and weapons, they began to put on their armor immediately. All 150 soldiers were quickly armored up, weapons resting at their sides.

Each platoon of 75 men, however, had 25 men who remained without weapons except for a handgun. These troops had undergone special training, at my request, totaling a grand number of 50 men. I kicked open the ARTEMIS supply crate, a smile formed across my face as I pulled out a shield. It was very similar to a ancient Roman shield but also bearing a strikingly resemblance to the shield of a Goliath.

I motioned for them to come and grab a shield, afterwards, they formed two lines in front of the remaining 100 troops. It was time to see if their training paid off...

"Testudo!" I shouted.

The first line immediately crouched, with the shield covering everything from the floor to their eyes. The second line raised their shields above their heads, and kneeling so that the shields covered the entire top of the group, preventing a grenade from being thrown into the mass of troops. The other 100 Legionnaires took their positions between the openings of the shield formation, rifle and shotgun barrels sticking out of the small openings.

"I think they're ready," Draco said. I gave him a nod of approval. After a brief second, the formation disbanded, everyone was now in front of the Chinooks again...

"Congrats, Ladies and Gentlemen! Now, this the beginning of the end for your trial period by ARTEMIS Headquarters. Now, get your asses over to the armory and load up, it's time to show them some results! Then we can all get some nice R&R."

Townsend had his 75 soldiers already running off to the armory, while Nakayama was explaining to his platoon the mission. Within a few minutes, First Platoon returned, each soldier carrying a wooden box of either ammunition or grenades. That was why it took 9 months to train a Legionnaire, Teamwork, I needed each man and woman in this unit to wholeheartedly trust the soldier to the right and left of them.

I had been listening in on the briefing Nakayama had given to Second Platoon. I was happy to hear through my helmet headset, that while First Platoon was collecting grenades and ammunition for the mission ahead, he had been briefing the entire unit through our comm channel. The Chinooks had already started to started to spin up their rotors, getting ready to leave. I headed off to the Command tent to receive more detailed orders, Draco following close behind me.

* * *

"So, what do you think this is about lieutenant?" asked one of the Rangers. I made a point not to learn their names, witnessing deaths after actually getting to know them made them even worse.

"I dunno," Nezarian said while shrugging. "Heard exactly the same that you did," he explained.

We chatted a little bit about our theories concerning the reason we were being called back from frontline duty. It ranged from a simple raiding op for us to a special mission to board the covvie supercarrier. Eventually we all decided that it was probably a simple long range patrol or some recon thing.

It wasn't...

"WHAT?" was the unanimous response to the comment that the colonel had just made.

"You heard me," he said.

"But sir, this is absurd, plain suicide!" Nezarian complained.

"Now you watch your tone lieutenant," the colonel warned with a stern voice.

"Sir, I think I am inclined to agree," I said. "This mission would be suicide."

"Well, that's why we picked you. You are the best we have," he explained.

"That doesn't make me feel better," a ranger mumbled.

The colonel decided to ignore him. "Get some rest, the operation starts tonight, good luck gentlemen," he said. And with that, we were dismissed.

* * *

That night, at the signaled time, we were all ready. I decided to leave most of my men at the Outpost, only taking along 25 men from each platoon, I had put Nakayama in charge of the men while our detachment was away. This time we didn't bother with anything other than ammunition and a small bag of grenades each. I had at least double the ammo that I usually carried. My rifle was equipped with a drum magazine and my knives were sharpened. Draco didn't spare any expenses either, he had his M60, his L85a2, and even an SMG. With spare ammunition for all of those. Not to count his sidearm.

Nezarian and the rangers were equipped with only their rifles and sidearms, but they were carrying as much ammunition as I was, perhaps a little bit more, taking into account that they were Army and those guys are famous for carrying tons and tons of ammo every time they go on combat. It had actually spawned a couple of jokes about the bullet to kill ratio of the Allied Army. They were exactly that though, rumors, Nezarian and his men had proved their worth during the battles at Outpost Alpha.

A minute later the NWMH team got here. By the way, that stands for Nuclear Weaponry and Material Handling. They were clad in the HAZOP version of marine armor. That did not bode well for me at all.

"Don't worry kid, this is our standard attire, you are at no risk being near the bomb," one of them said when he caught me staring at their armor. They all had SMGs and pistols, the sign of either special operations or of troops that rarely fought. I assumed it was the second since they didn't look like battle-hardened veterans to me.

Behind them came a troop transport Jeep with what seemed like a longer flatbed in the back. On top of it was a dull grey cylinder. The only thing that signaled what it was were some black letters spelling HAVOK. That meant it was a HAVOK warhead, and by the size of it, it must've had a yield of some 50 megatons. Yeah, enough to wipe any city from the map and then some.

"Well, we're ready."

With that, we set off. Our part in this mission required us to escort the NWMH team through the Sangvis lines and right to the exposed side of the beached supercarrier. Once we got there we would hold the ground for some time while the nuclear guys set up the bomb and everything. They wouldn't detonate it, but they would set it to red alert. That way when the carrier decided to fire the cannons at some ship, the bomb would blow it all to hell. Quite literally, as I hear that nuclear explosions are very hot. Who am I kidding? I've been near a nuclear explosion more than my fair share of times. The weapons were commonly deployed to Eastern Europe, the Flatlands of the former Soviet Union dotted with dozens of craters.

Our unit left the camp with only our armor and no heavy weaponry to speak of. The only vehicle we had, was a Jeep laden with a rather heavy bomb on the back.

This time it wouldn't be about firepower, it would actually be about stealth. Yet here we were, carrying tons of ammunition that we were told we wouldn't use, but this is the kind of mission that goes wrong.

We had been walking slowly for a few hours now. The rangers and us were walking in a wide circle around the slow-moving warthog. The NWMH members were driving, going shotgun, and sitting on top of the bomb respectively. We had two rangers for scouts, warning us whenever an enemy patrol was ahead of us. So far we had managed to avoid every single enemy patrol and only had to eliminate one quickly.

"How much farther?" someone asked.

"Bout eight kilometers."

"Damn," the first ranger replied.

Eight kilometers was a long way to go at the rhythm we currently were doing. We had to get to our goal before daybreak, otherwise we'd have a difficult time returning without actually having to eliminate half the enemy army, something which we were in no position to do so. Well, technically we could've detonated the nuke, but I wasn't big on that plan.

"Halt," one of the scouts whispered.

We all complied and crouched, the NWMH guys hopped off from the hog and they aimed their guns toward the direction of the scouts, waiting for the enemy to either pass us without notice or come guns blazing.

"One Stalker, two Jaegers, eight grunts," the scout whispered.

No one said anything; we had all gotten the information and burned it into our brains for the purpose of utilizing it when we opened fire.

"Looks like they're going to stop here," the scout said.

"As soon as possible, try to take them out," Nezarian said.

"I don't think we can do it ourselves," the scout whispered again. "We need a couple more."

"You, and you, go there," I ordered two of my Legionnaires. They nodded and left at a brisk, albeit noiseless trot.

We waited for three and a half minutes before we heard loud snaps in rapid succession. Suppressed weapons fire. Another ten seconds passed before we heard anything.

"Looks like its clear lieutenant," the first scout said.

"Good, let's keep moving..."

The Jeep was turned on again and we started our slow walk towards our goal. We passed the place where the unfortunate patrol had decided to take a rest and I saw that the rangers and my men had been very thorough. The Stalker had been taken out with a headshot, the Jaegers with regular double taps to the chest while the grunts had simply been sprayed. There was oil colored blood already forming pools in the ground.

I looked ahead and saw the gigantic ship. This single vehicle had managed to hold out against several Allied Army regiments with its ground troops only for several weeks. Granted, their ground troops outnumbered us quite drastically, but they had received heavy pounding on account to the fact that we counted with different types of support while they didn't. The ship was gray and red, with several lights dotting its hull. At this close distance of only 200 meters away, I could feel the threatening presence of the ship, it made me feel uncomfortable.

Finally, after another hour of walking and avoiding patrols, we had made it. We were right next to our target. A couple miles away from the cargo bay and slightly to the bow of the ship, but still pretty close to the center of it overall.

"AH-6!" someone called.

We all jumped to the ground, but the flier had already spotted the bulky Jeep and was lining up to strafe it. The NWMH guys jumped out just in time to avoid being bullet ridden by the chopper. The Gatling guns left a few scratch marks on the hull of the bomb, but otherwise didn't damage it. Once I realized that I took a deep breath.

Immediately after that, we all opened fire on the Helicopter. The combination of small arms fire quickly brought it down, but the damage was done, its gunfire must've been heard all over the place, same as the explosion after it crashed. Not to mention that it probably called in an alarm.

"Get working!" Nezarian ordered the NWMH guys. They happily complied.

"Set a perimeter, hundred yards from the WMD, give em some space to work," he barked. He shouldn't have bothered, we were already spreading out and finding nice defensive positions.

"Command, we've been spotted. We made it all the way to our objective, but a enemy AH-6 spotted us, requesting evac."

( _Static… static…_ )

"Enemy patrol closing in on us!" Yelled one Legionnaire into his headset.

"Well shoot it goddamit!" Replied Townsend, now a seasoned warrior after our battle in Afghanistan.

"You don't have to tell me twice." The same Legionnaire assured his superior.

I heard the report of the silenced assault rifle barking repeatedly at the unseen patrol. I aimed down the sight to see if I could spot any enemy soldier while we got a response from command. The dark night went gray as I activated the night vision section of my scope, further adding a greenish tint to the goggles.

( _Static… static…_ )

"Lieutenant, this is command, we cannot send a Chinook in for you, we cannot risk any aircraft," came an unknown voice.

"Are you fucking kidding me? We'll get killed out here," Nezarian replied.

"Amen to that," Draco muttered.

"We need fucking evac right fucking now, or we'll fucking die!" Nezarian yelled.

There was a few moments of silence before we finally got a reply. "Very well then, a Blackhawk Squadron will be there in a few minutes."

"Well that was easy," I pointed out.

"Thank god," I added.

Now, you see, Blackhawks are fast craft, able to reach speeds in excess of 250 MPH, they can also hover and fly sideways and diagonally and in every direction possible. They also happen to be armed and armored rather heavily. It is probably the epitome of human engineering and military prowess. Lately though, they were being swatted down like flies...

"Scotty?"

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Zoned out." I fired at a Jaeger carrying a carbine and killed it with a headshot. Couldn't help but smile a little after I saw its head explode like some sort of fruit.

The Jaeger wasn't alone though, little bitch over there had some friends. Those friends were actually a rather large pack of Stalkers. The human equivalent to a platoon. Thirty of them, against me. Normally I would've worried, but at this distance the odds would even to about half that by the time they reached me.

Still not good enough…

I fired away, starting with the captain and moving down the ranks. After knocking down two majors, I realize my mistake. I could've taken out the captain and then the minors, but now that they were all out of leaders, the enemies went berserk. We all know what happens when they do that. The things charged at me sprinting. They were sprinting faster than even I could, faster than an elite could, probably around the same speed I had seen those Hounds move, and that's saying a lot.

"Uh-oh," was all I said as the Stalkers lunged at me. I started walking backwards while keeping up my fire, hoping to draw them away from the other Legionnaires and allow them to help me out as soon as the enemies came within their fields of fire.

By the time they had reached my original position their numbers had been reduced from thirty to nineteen. Not bad at all given the time I had.

"Frag out!" I called as I tossed one of my grenades. The explosion blew three of them off their feet, killing one of them and injuring the two others. That's about the moment that Draco and the other Legionnaire closest to my position shifted their fire and caught the enraged Stalkers in their backs. Five of them were killed in as many seconds. The rest turned around to return fire, making the mistake of leaving me unchecked. I managed to take out three of them before Draco and the other trooper eliminated the rest of the confused Stalkers. That could've been a textbook maneuver, three against thirty and coming out victorious without an injury.

"Where the hell's that Helicopter?!" Nezarian yelled.

"A minute away," came the answer. It was yet another new voice, this time it was Sheppard. The leader of our new Transport Squadron.

"How is the bomb going?" the lieutenant asked.

"Just about," replied the leader of the NWMH team.

"Well, you'd better hurry up, or we'll actually be rescued before you're done," Nezarian said.

The rangers and us Legionnaires had been slowly falling back as several nearby Sangvis patrols closed in on our position. We had a decent position and our goggles and night-vision gear gave us an advantage over the enemy soldiers. We could've actually held out here for a rather long time provided things remained like this.

I had just killed two grunts when I heard a familiar hum. I looked up to see a low-flying Blackhawk Squadron speeding towards us, the aircraft had been painted black, with the silver Eagle of the Legionnaires on both sides of the hull.

"Done!" one of the NWMH soldiers said.

"Hop on the evac helis!" Nezarian ordered.

We all fell back in an orderly fashion, making our circle decrease in diameter as we walked backwards while still sustaining our fire. Sheppard and his Blackhawks did their job by using autocannons and machineguns, keeping the patrols with their heads down.

I was last to jump on the last Blackhawk, the machinegun on the side roared as it spewed lead at a group of grunts and Jaegers, riddling them with holes. The small patrol collapsed, dead.

The Helicopter lifted up in the air, enemy gunfire striking the hull but barely damaging it. I hopped backwards to avoid a tracer round and fell on my ass. This one was surprisingly lacking in the normal benches, I guess it helped the Helicopter fit more troops that way...

"Wow," a Legionnaire said.

"What?" Townsend asked the woman.

"That actually…. went pretty damn well. We even managed to set up the bomb and everything." She explained.

"We're elite, that's what we do," another said.

"Aw, cmon Captain, when's the last time something went according to plan?" Townsend said to me, dragging me into the discussion.

"Townsend's got a point," I said. It actually depressed me to think back to the last mission that had actually gone according to plan. That is to say, none.

"By the way, what happens if they deactivate the nuke?" Draco asked.

"They don't got the technical know-how. It's more likely that they would set it off than they deactivate it. Besides, the dummy frigate is already on its way."  
Explained one of the NWMH guys.

The dummy frigate in question was an actual frigate with everything of importance removed from inside of it. Its turrets, its AA cannons, it's armor, its everything. It was basically a metallic shell in the shape of a frigate. The engines had been left on though, propelling it on an automatic route to this side of the Mediterranean, where it would be in range of the carrier.

Just as the Helicopter Squadron landed on camp, there was a noise that reminded me of uncapping a soda bottle, sort of a fizzing sound. I looked at the carrier to see a part of its top move slightly, although I couldn't really make out what it was.

"I advise you look away gentlemen," the leader of the NWMH said.

I turned around just in time. I heard a noise remembering me of the sound that assault rifles made, only that a million times louder. Instants later, that sound was blocked out by another, more familiar sound. The sound of an explosion. At first I was afraid that the nuke had gone of, actually killing us all, but it turned out that it was the warning missile that had been fired as soon as the carrier had fired it's cannons. I knew that a looped recording telling the Sangvis not to deactivate the nuke as it would likely go off and making some demands was now playing. The recording was a distraction to confuse and delay them. All Allied forces were now in the process of falling back to outside of the blast radius of the HAVOK nuke. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, one of the enormous container ships would be used as a decoy in the same manner that the frigate had been used. As soon as the supercarrier fired it's cannons again, 30 megatons of pure hell would be unleashed, destroying it and most of the surrounding enemy forces.

Huh, it all actually went according to plan.

Isn't it just beautiful when that happens? I think so...

* * *

AN: whoooo! Ten thousand words! I hope you enjoyed the finale of my Prolouge. After a few days, the main story will be released!

Thank you to all my readers! I highly recommend you go read; Girls Frontline, the fall. Okami was happy enough to share his expanded lore with me!

Wouldn't it be fair to read the story that inspired this one? Anyway...thanks for staying tuned, and I hope to see you on the Frontline! (I apologise for any errors or wrong words...blame my auto correct on my laptop/tablet...sorry)


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